USA Africa Dialogue Series - We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes

To me, there is a real irony over this matter of paying one's taxes. A couple of
years ago, one Mrs. Leona Helmsley, a businesswoman and real estate mogul, noted
boastfully that "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes [in
America]." Her statement troubled the IRS as it did many Americans—particularly
those who struggle to pay their taxes.

When the palaver over Romney's taxes came to the fore in the Palmetto state
(South Carolina) republican primaries because his opponents brought pressure to
bear on him to release his taxes, he admitted that he paid below 14% in taxes
for the one year that he had declared so far. I wonder why he thought the issue
of his taxes would die in South Carolina.

Many news reporters and others like the Republican Governor of the great state
of Alabama and Bill Kristol (of Fox-TV Sunday Program) have asked him to declare
his taxes in order to clear up the air. But he keeps dodging the issue and
suggesting that he would release his 2011 taxes before the election.

The question is: does Romney's refusal to declare his taxes to silence his
critics play into the infamous narrative that "We [the rich] don't pay taxes.
Only the little people pay taxes?"

Ike Udogu

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