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Election 2012: Your stories
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Romney's Taxes
People are upset because Romney only has to pay 15% on the income he gets from capital gains.
Here's my story. When I was 19 I bought my 1st piece of real estate. It was an undeveloped lot I bought for $3000 in an auction. The $3000 was money saved from work I had done and it was what was left over after paying social security, income taxes, medicare, along with state taxes blah blah blah.
The point is I bought the property with money left over after i had already paid my taxes. I sold it 4 years later for $11,000. However I had to pay capital gains taxes on the amount it went up in value. Capital gains tax is really double taxation. At some point Romney earned the money he bought his stocks with. He paid his taxes on that earned income. The capital gains tax is just a bonus tax piled on previous taxes. So really he pays more than the average citizen.
Even though I had to pay taxes on my capital gain I had enough left over for the down payment on my 1st house.
Over the course of the years I was able to fix-up and sell homes and move-up into nicer homes until the big crash in 2007. However I did avoid most of that drop in real estate values by selling at the peak in So Cal and moving to the front range of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. Housing hasn't taken as bad of a hit in Colorado and I retained some of my equity. I've been bullish on real estate my whole life, and there looks to be a glimmer of hope at the end of the tunnel. There has been some good news recently about the direction of real estate. Maybe someday I'll make so much money selling one of my properties I'll have to pay a huge capital gains tax. That would be nice. Right now if I sell I'm forced to write of my capital losses in $3000 annual increments. Now that's unfair. If you get a capital gain you have to pay taxes all in one year, but a loss is in $3K increments. What's up with that?
Here's my story. When I was 19 I bought my 1st piece of real estate. It was an undeveloped lot I bought for $3000 in an auction. The $3000 was money saved from work I had done and it was what was left over after paying social security, income taxes, medicare, along with state taxes blah blah blah.
The point is I bought the property with money left over after i had already paid my taxes. I sold it 4 years later for $11,000. However I had to pay capital gains taxes on the amount it went up in value. Capital gains tax is really double taxation. At some point Romney earned the money he bought his stocks with. He paid his taxes on that earned income. The capital gains tax is just a bonus tax piled on previous taxes. So really he pays more than the average citizen.
Even though I had to pay taxes on my capital gain I had enough left over for the down payment on my 1st house.
Over the course of the years I was able to fix-up and sell homes and move-up into nicer homes until the big crash in 2007. However I did avoid most of that drop in real estate values by selling at the peak in So Cal and moving to the front range of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. Housing hasn't taken as bad of a hit in Colorado and I retained some of my equity. I've been bullish on real estate my whole life, and there looks to be a glimmer of hope at the end of the tunnel. There has been some good news recently about the direction of real estate. Maybe someday I'll make so much money selling one of my properties I'll have to pay a huge capital gains tax. That would be nice. Right now if I sell I'm forced to write of my capital losses in $3000 annual increments. Now that's unfair. If you get a capital gain you have to pay taxes all in one year, but a loss is in $3K increments. What's up with that?
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