Zeroing In On Mitt Romney’s Tax Deadbeats

 

Fortunately, researchers at the Tax Foundation have done the heavy lifting for us.

 

Here is a screen capture showing the top fifteen states with the greatest number of "no income tax liability" returns for the 2010 tax year noting that I am not adding up the total number, rather, I am using the percentage data:

 

 

Notice that most of the non-taxpayers are concentrated in the southern half of the United States?  Other than Idaho, the top ten states include Mississippi where a whopping 44.5 percent of filers owed no federal tax, Georgia (42.5 percent), Alabama (40.3 percent), Florida, Arkansas, South Carolina, New Mexico, Texas and Utah.

 

The states with the highest percentage of filers with federal taxes owing are Alaska where only 22 percent of filers owed no taxes, North Dakota (26.3 percent), New Hampshire (26.3 percent), Massachusetts (26.3 percent), Connecticut (26.6 percent) and Maryland (28.2 percent).  There's quite a strong leaning toward owing federal taxes if you live in a New England state, isn't there?

 

Here's a map showing the red and blue states from the 2008 Presidential election results:

 

 

Outside of Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, California and New Mexico, it would appear that the of the top fifteen states where the highest number of Americans that don't owe federal taxes are living and voting in the Republican or red states.  Interestingly enough, of the top ten tax paying states, the majority are Democratic or blue states.  Please note again, that I have not added up the numbers, just using the raw state percentage data. 

 

One has to wonder.  What was Mr. Romney thinking?  Is this really how he feels or was he just playing to his audience?  It is possible that, in the excitement of the moment, he wandered off his talking points, thinking that he was just talking to a room full of like-minded uber-wealthy Americans who had $50,000 to spend on a fundraising dinner?  My suspicion is the latter.

 

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