Romney Asked VP Shortlisters for Ten Years of Tax Returns [TDB]
As part of its vetting, the Romney campaign required at least some of the candidates on the short list—including the eventual winner of the GOP veepstakes, Ryan—to submit fully 10 years of tax returns, according to a knowledgeable source. The requirement was consistent with the past practices of both Republican and Democratic campaigns. Indeed, in 2008, Mitt Romney turned over 23 years of taxes to John Mccain’s campaign when he was under consideration to be the Arizona senator’s running mate.
Romney Tax Cuts Work Only When Mortgage Deduction Mostly Reduced [Bloomberg]
Mitt Romney says he can lower income-tax rates by 20 percent without costing the U.S. government revenue and without making the middle class carry a bigger share of the tax load. He’s right — assuming that Congress eliminates the most widely used deductions by taxpayers earning more than $100,000 a year, says Harvey Rosen, an economics professor at Princeton University whose study Romney cites as evidence that his plan is viable. The Republican presidential candidate has refused to say which tax breaks he would eliminate. Rosen’s illustration abolishes those for home mortgage interest payments, employer- provided health insurance, state and local taxes, charitable donations and the unrealized increase in the value of life- insurance policies for households with six-figure incomes. “Even if you could maybe make it work in an abstract world, you can’t assume that all of these deductions will be eliminated, especially by a candidate who so far hasn’t identified one he’d do away with,” says Alan Viard, a former Treasury Department tax expert in President George W. Bush’s administration. Former Republican Representative William Frenzel, a tax and budget expert who spent 20 years in the U.S. House, says, “Romney’s plan would have enormous difficulty getting through the Congress.”
Is This the Tax to Pass the Grover Norquist Test? [Bloomberg]
Ezra Klein has a dream.
"Anything But Market" is the FASB's Mantra for Loan Loss Accounting [Accounting Onion]
I'm having trouble picturing Leslie Seidman chanting in a lotus pose.
H&R Block CEO touts company’s strong position at annual meeting [KCBJ]
The Kansas City-based tax preparer filed 25.6 million U.S. tax returns during fiscal 2012, which ended April 30. That’s up from 24.5 million last year and from 23.2 million in 2010. The company handled one of every six returns filed. “Our business model is to serve clients the way they want to be served,” Cobb said at the company’s annual meeting Thursday. “If they want to come to one of our offices, or if they want to talk to us via a Skype-like platform, or if they want to use one of our software items that they buy at Walmart or Office Max, or if they want to go online, we don’t direct the client, we just serve them.”