"For all the rhetoric about high taxes in the United States, most Americans pay a relatively small percentage of their income in taxes. Romney had an effective rate of 13.9 percent in 2010 and 15.4 percent in 2011. That gives him a higher rate than 80 percent of taxpayers if only taxes on a tax return are counted and puts him just about in the middle of all taxpayers if payroll taxes paid by employers are included."

This was from a fact check thing that someone linked to on facebook.  I closed the page, so I can't id it at this moment.

This is crazy confusing.  What are the actual FACTS?  Saying one comparison is false and then giving another vague comparison is not particularly reassuring.  What does Romneys "effective" tax rate include?  Is it the "effective" rate of 80% of taxpayers that is being compared?  Why would you include payroll taxes, and if you did, are you counting the taxes Romney payed for his employees as "his" taxes and do the payroll tax paid by the employer of the regular taxpayer get counted for that individual?

I have no idea what the "right" comparison is, but hello factcheckers, give the actual facts don't just whine that the politicians didn't.

Maybe I'll take the time to try to figure that stuff out.  Maybe...


Update One:  Wikipedia says that "effective tax rate" can mean just about anything depending on who is talking.

Update Two:  From the mitt Romney website his 2010 federal tax return says
line 22 (total income)= 21,661,344
line 37 (adjusted gross income)= 21,646,507
line 60 of his tax return (total tax)= 3,009,766

so, since 3 times 7 is 21, he is paying about 1/7 of his income in taxes.  100/7= 14ish
which is about the percent written (though I guess in this case a fraction of a percent is pretty hefty.  Also I was just looking at federal taxes not state (or sales or anything else) so it seems like Mitt Romney didn't pay much in state taxes).  BTW: I didn't know Mitt was short for Willard.  M is his middle initial though, so I guess it's likely his nickname is from that.  Huh.

So now the question is, what does an "average" taxpayer pay in federal income taxes.

Update 3:  How should I define "average"?

Wikipedia says that about 75% of taxpayers made less than 50,000 that year.

If we used mode (i think) the group with the highest number of people is the 100,000+ group.  That is about 6% of the population, about the same percentage that makes less than 2,500 or that makes 10,000-12,499

About 52% made less than  27,000-29,000.

I don't know what to use, but let's say that since Mitt Romney's tax return was for both him and his wife, our "average joe" will be married to an "average jane" and together they make something like 100,000.  I think that's reasonable.

Update 4: So the lines of our imaginary couple would be something like

line 22 (total income): 120,000 (20,000 of interest or something.  I don't know)
line 37 (gross income): 120,000 (let's keep it simple)
line 60 (total tax)  (wow how do I figure that out!)  Well, let's just say that joe and jane have 20,000 worth of exemptions (why not?) so they are paying taxes for 100,000 and so line 44 is likely to be.........
             
            from moneychimp.com (because I don't want to actually do the work, it's late.  Okay, so this is the percent for 2012 not 2010, but it is what I found.)
"To take an example, suppose your taxable income (after deductions and exemptions) is exactly $100,000 in 2012 and your status is Married filing jointly; then your tax would be calculated like this:

(	$ 17,400   minus	0 )	x .10 :	$   1,740.00
(	70,700   minus	17,400 )	x .15 :	7,995.00
(	100,000   minus	70,700 )	x .25 :	7,325.00
	Total:	$ 17,060.00

This puts you in the 25% tax bracket, since that's the highest rate applied to any of your income; but as a percentage of the whole $100,000, your tax is about 17%."

So, I guess it isn't really fair to compare 2010 and 2012, though I don't know how different the tax rate would be from one year to the next.  I don't know this crap, which is why I would like a decent fact check thingie.  Anyone know of one?

The end

Wait a sec, I realize my numbers don't really make sense.  100000 is way too much for an average couple to make.  Meh.  It's late, and as someone who makes under 10000, I don't really care.  The point I was making anyway is that I want a good factcheck.