For more on the dog v. town/county fight, click
here.
At minute 2:10 and on Romney says he pays as little tax as he has too, like all good Americans. But...
...I can't play that game. If I were to be audited, I don't have lawyers and accountants and threats to bring to the table. Instead, I under report my expenses, just to be on the safe side, so that an audit would find I over paid and give them nothing to use against me. When in doubt, I don't deduct. I can't afford the risk.
I know of a pre-school that got audited. They had a donkey for the kids to play with. The IRS said they could not deduct the donkey expenses, as donkeys are not part of running a pre-school, although the animals were clearly popular with the students and the parents and served no other real purpose.
Here is another guy making much the same point
here:
I worked for my dad's company in the late 80s. It was an oil-patch company in Houston that transshipped oil off of Supertankers (VLCCs & ULCCs) in the Gulf of Mexico. It was, in my opinion, a very well run company with a management team that were all owners, along with a corporate investor who funded a chunk and held some board seats.
After the Valdez incident (not an accident, imo) corporate law started to place more and more legal liability on the CEO. My dad kept his position and sweated it out. They knew they had excellent training, very solid ops manuals, hired good captains and crews, etc. But you're operating two tankers parallel in the open waters with rubber hoses across them.
Knowing what I do now about rogue waves, I'm damn glad they did this in the Gulf, which at least wouldn't be as likely to have them as the big bodies of water. Anyway, an accident could occur, even of natural/unpredictable causes. Or a sea captain as bad as Hazelwood could be at the wheel of the VLCC/ULCC being lightered (ie: not under the ownership or control of our company but the importer's company instead).
The point is, when my dad wanted to retire, to care for my dying mother, none of the partners was willing to step up to be CEO. None of them could sweat the responsibility. Eventually one of the partners did step up and dad retired. But it took years. It makes me so insanely angry to see Romney trying to dodge his share of accountability when true job creators (at its' peak, my dad's company had 9 white collar jobs and over 70 workboat staff, all employees, plus pilots and other contractors, plus supply contracts that must have created jobs, etc) have to take considerable personal risk to run businesses.
Dad could have gone to jail under Texas pollution law even if he hadn't been found the slightest bit negligent, if there had been an accident leading to a spill. Jail would have been admittedly unlikely, but it hung out there. Massive lawsuits and civil fines would of course happen, as would dragging his name through the mud. Even with the best plans, training and monitoring in place. Thankfully, the company ran successfully for many years before being sold and rolled into a larger int'l firm, free of spills.
The upshot: Romney strikes me as [lacking courage] when compared to an actual entrepreneur and CEO.
