Saturday, January 16, 2010

Paying More than T-Wall in One Paycheck

Based on a report from Wispolitics, if you collect any paycheck at all, then you probably paid more personal state income taxes in that one check than Terrance Wall has in several years. Even though the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate reports as much as $15 million in income and $129 million in assets, Wispolitics reports that Wall paid no personal state income tax in four of five years.

I will never understand how someone flipping burgers can pay more in one single paycheck than a multimillionaire does over several years. As if this kind of scenario isn't baffling enough, then it is usually the big shot that whines and cries about burdensome tax rates and how we invest our hard earned tax dollars for the common good.

It is certainly no surprise that a multimillionaire would adopt strategies to avoid paying as many taxes as possible. Surely they can afford to pay a small army of lawyers and accountants to take advantage of every possible loophole in the book. Based on other recent reports on T-Wall, it appears that this possible strategy is not just applied to personal state income taxes.

With that kind of record, exactly who does Wall think that he is going to have credibility with on the issue of taxes? Maybe the diehard right-wing partisans will rush to defend him, but that is out of political necessity more than anything else. Explanations for his tax avoidance will likely ring hollow with most hard working Wisconsinites. The simple fact is that most have paid more than T-Wall in one single paycheck than the multimillionaire has paid over the course of several years.

No comments: