If it’s your Valentine’s Day dream to be questioned in public by Reps. Dave Camp, Earl Blumenauer and Vern Buchanan, you’re in luck.

The House Ways and Means Committee is holding an open casting call for witnesses at a Feb. 14 hearing on the federal income tax deduction for charitable contributions.

The approach could shake up the often-predictable format of congressional hearings, which usually feature a professor or two, a think tank expert and maybe a corporate executive or administration official.

If you want to face the dais in the Longworth Building, surrounded by the portraits of former committee chairmen, just send an e-mail to tax.reform@mail.house.gov by the end of the day on Feb. 7.

Put “charitable deduction” in the subject line and explain what you want to say.

There’s one catch in the announcement’s fine print: “In view of the limited time available to hear witnesses, the committee may not be able to accommodate all requests to be heard.”

Original post is Valentine’s Day Card from Congress: Come See Us About Tax Breaks by Political Capital.

To economists, the tax deduction for charitable contributions is equivalent to a government grant matching private donations that increases with income.

So when the top tax rate increased to 39.6 percent from 35 percent, as it did last week, so did the power of the charitable deduction. For taxpayers in the new top bracket, the after-tax cost of contributions dropped by 7 percent, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington.

That will encourage people to donate money to nonprofits rather than pay it in taxes.

Combined with other changes, the center estimates that the tax increases passed by Congress last week will increase charitable giving by 1.3 percent, or $3.3 billion.

Original post is Tax Boosts: Charities to Benefit by Political Capital.

Congress apparently hasn’t gotten the memo yet.

In the legislative session that started Jan. 3, House members have already introduced more than a dozen tax bills with ideas that would make the tax code yet more complicated.

They include an employment assistance voucher program from Pennsylvania Republican Mike Fitzpatrick, limits on the deductibility of executive compensation from California Democrat Barbara Lee and a tuition tax credit for math and science teachers from New Jersey Democrat Rush Holt.

New York Republican Michael Grimm introduced a bill to offer incentives for mechanical insulation.

They might need some of that over at the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee to handle all the paper headed their way.

Original post is Taxing: Where There are Ways the Means of Complication are Endless by Political Capital.

Photograph by Scott Eells/Bloomberg

Mitt and Ann Romney during the RNC.

Updated with added details

Mitt and Ann Romney paid $1,935,708 in taxes last year on $13,696,951 in mostly investment income, according to a report from their accountants released by the campaign today.

The Romneys’ effective tax rate for 2011 was 14.1 percent, the accountants said.

The couple donated $4 million to charity, they reported, amounting to nearly 30 percent of their income, and claimed a tax deduction of $2.25 million as a result. They are said to have restrained their deduction for charitable giving to keep their tax rate above 13 percent.

This was the second of two promised releases.

Romney had earlier disclosed his 2010 tax return, which showed an effective tax rate of 13.9 percent paid on $21 million of investment income. Refusing to release more than the 2010 and 2011 returns, Romney also has said that he has examined the last 10 years of his returns and found that he never paid less than 13 percent in taxes.

The typical American household paid 17.4 percent in taxes in 2009, including federal and other levies.

“The Romneys’ generous charitable donations in 2011 would have significantly reduced their tax obligations for the year,” Brad Malt, the trustee of Romney’s blind trust, wrote in a campaign blog posting. “The Romneys thus limited their deduction of charitable contributions to conform to the governor’s statement in August…  that he paid at least 13 percent in income taxes in each of the last 10 years.”

Over a 20-year period, Malt reported today, the Romneys’ annual tax rate averaged 20.2 percent, and over those two decades they have never paid less than 13.66 percent, and they have given, on average, 13.45 percent of their adjusted income to charity,

President Barack Obama paid 20.5 percent in federal taxes on $789,674 in adjusted gross income for 2011, he reported earlier this year. The Obama campaign has been pressing Romney to release more returns, saying it would settle for five years of reports.

U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Romney’s choice for vice president, on Aug. 17 released information showing he paid a 20 percent effective tax rate on his 2011 income.

Original post is Romney’s 2011 Taxes: 14.1 Pct by Political Capital.

President Barack Obama is not letting go of Mitt Romney’s taxes.

And the president’s re-election campaign, with its newest post-convention, post-9/11 attack ad against his Republican rival, is taking his opponent to task for not spelling out how he might pay for his pledge to cut income tax brackets by 20 percent across the board.

Romney has said that he would tighten tax exemptions for high-earners to offset the cost of tax breaks for all, yet hasn’t said how he’d do it. The biggest tax exemptions include the write-off for home mortgage interest payments, employer-paid health insurance and charitable donations and lower tax rates for investment earnings.

The ad cites a Tax Policy Center report that people earning less than $200,000 a year would pay about $2,000 more a year to pay for Romney’s tax plan. It warns that taxpayers could lose support for home mortgages, health care and college tuition. It’s difficult for the Romney campaign to rebut these claims, as it hasn’t spelled out which exemptions he’d cut, and by how much.

Romney has refused to reveal more than two years of personal income tax returns — his 2010 return showing a 13.9 percent tax paid on investment earnings of more than $21 million, his 2011 return to be released when complete. He maintains that, in 10 years of tax returns, he never has paid less than 13 percent in taxes.

Donald Trump’s airplane plays prominently in this ad, as it has in others.

“Mitt Romney, he won’t reveal what’s in his taxes, and he won’t tell you what he’d do to yours,” the narrator of Obama’s new ad says. “How much will you pay? Romney just won’t say.”

The ad, following a hiatus in respect for the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, represents a return to normal campaign programming: The Obama campaign has aired nearly 300,000 TV ads since Romney effectively became the Republican candidate in April, according to Kantar Media’s CMAG, which monitors advertising. The firm says 72 percent of Obama’s ads have carried a negative tone. With Romney and allied super-PACs airing another 300,000 ads of their own, 85 and 94 percent have gone negative.

Original post is Obama: Romney’s Tax, Your Tax by Political Capital.

Photograph by Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images

Tea party activist William Temple marches in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Tea Party groups are moving closer to their goal of being able to discuss the issues in the upcoming presidential election — while remaining tax-free.

After complaining loudly of unfair treatment at the hands of the IRS, at least eight Tea Party groups have been granted tax exemptions. And many more are in the hopper for approval, according to the IRS.

It took some congressional intervention, and some work by former IRS trial attorney Jay Seculow, as reported in Bloomberg BNA’s Daily Tax Report.

Seculow, now chief counsel for the Center for Law and Justice, took the groups under his wing in March, alleging that the IRS’s questions about their application for exemption violated their free speech and freedom of association rights.

A“coordinated and comprehensive response” to IRS’s probing questions about how the organizations are structured — and more importantly their membership lists – were the key to success, Seculow said. The IRS has now backed off the extensive follow-up questions it had been asking some of the groups for years, he said.

Add TEA Party Maui and the Richmond Tea Party to the list of those who have gotten the thumbs up so far.

“We’re elated,” said Bill Doyle, TEA Party Maui’s president. It’s something his group had been working on since May 2010. “We took a stand, and once the ACLJ got involved, I think the IRS realized we weren’t backing down. They realized they had overstepped their bounds.”

The IRS has a good reason for asking questions about how the groups intend to use their tax-exempt status.

The agency has been on the hot seat with both Democrats and Republicans over handing out exemptions under 501(c)(4) of the tax code. Not only will the Tea Party groups be allowed to educate and advocate on issues as social welfare organizations, but they also will be allowed to endorse or oppose political candidates for office as November approaches, as long as they don’t make that their primary activity.

And what is the goal of the Tea Parties?

According to ACLJ’s Gene Kapp, it’s to educate and advocate on issues – not endorse candidates.

Phil Rapp, executive director of the Richmond Tea Party, said his group will keep on doing what it has been doing since 2009: holding candidate forums to talk about the issues, posting Facebook messages on the need for adherence to the Constitution and limited government and advocating for legislation that supports those principles.

“We won’t be endorsing any candidates, but we will be interested in bringing about a change in Washington,” he said.

Original post is Tea Party Tax Exemptions Granted by Political Capital.