Romney Posts 2011 Tax Returns and Other Tax Info Online
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Romney Posts 2011 Tax Returns and Other Tax Info Online - Mitt Romney's campaign posted the Romneyfamily's 2011 tax..
Mitt Romney’s campaign posted the Romney family’s 2011 tax returns as well as a summary of their taxes from 1990-2009 online Friday afternoon.
The Romney campaign pre-announced the 2011 returns in a blog post earlier Friday, which gave snippets of information about Romney’s finances for that year:
- In 2011, the Romneys paid $1,935,708 in taxes on $13,696,951 in mostly investment income.
- The family’s effective tax rate for 2011 was 14.1%.
- The Romneys donated $4,020,772 to charity in 2011, amounting to nearly 30% of their income.
- The Romneys claimed a deduction for $2.25 million of those charitable contributions.
- The Romneys’ charitable donations in 2011 would have significantly reduced their tax obligation for the year.
- The Romneys thus limited their deduction of charitable contributions to conform to the governor’s statement in August, based upon the January estimate of income, that he paid at least 13% in income taxes in each of the last 10 years.
The blog post also gave some details about the 1990-2009 summary, a notarized letter from the Romney family’s tax preparer, PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP (PWC).
- In each year during the entire 20-year period, the Romneys owed both state and federal income taxes.
- Over the entire 20-year period, the average annual effective federal tax rate was 20.20%.
- Over the entire 20-year period, the lowest annual effective federal personal tax rate was 13.66%.
- Over the entire 20-year period, the Romneys gave to charity an average of 13.45% of their adjusted gross income.
- Over the entire 20-year period, the total federal and state taxes owed plus the total charitable donations deducted represented 38.49% of total AGI.
Romney’s newly released financial data can be accessed at MittRomney.com/disclosure. (Note: This site seems to be experiencing a significant amount of traffic and may not immediately load.) The campaign has also set up a unique email address for questions about the tax returns, returns@mittromney.com.
Immediately after the first blog post went up, political journalists on Twitter began dissecting the included information:
Romney camp: In 2011, the Romneys paid $1,935,708 in taxes on $13,696,951 in mostly investment income.
Romney paid effective tax rate of 14.1 percent in 2011; Obama paid an effective tax rate of 20.5 percent in 2011.
For what it's worth, articles about Romney's taxes are currently the #1, #5 and #7 most popular items on the Bloomberg terminal.
Some observers pointed out that Romney didn’t take all the deductions to which he was entitled, effectively bumping up his tax rate to conform to a statement he’d made in August.
If Romney had taken all his deductions, he wd have paid closer to 9% tax in 2011. He paid extra VOLUNTARILY just for optics.
Romney to ABC in July: "If I had paid more than are legally due I don't think I'd be qualified to become president." abcn.ws/OgHC3m
Romney literally picked a tax rate and engineered his return to hit the mark
Others pointed out that Harry Reid, who claimed that a still-unknown source told him Romney paid no taxes in earlier years, now may owe Romney an apology:
Harry Reid really shouldn't be allowed to get away with this.
Romney has been under pressure from Democrats and others to release more of his tax returns, as tax rates have become a central issue in this year’s election.
