In 2011, Romney Paid More Taxes Than He Had To - Business Insider

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mitt romney(h/t and summary from William Bailey) Excellent move by Romney’s campaign to release his 2011 Tax Returns and a summary of the previous 20 years. Romney made approximately 13.6 million last year and paid roughly 2 million in taxes – a 14.1% clip (higher than he had to since his income was solely from stocks and investments). However, that percentage would have been much higher if not for the 4 million he gave to charity; meaning, he paid out over 40% of his income to the government and various organizations in need. Wow, what a heartless, capitalist pig! (BTW, Millionaire Obama gave a fraction of what Romney gave to charities; and, Biden gave only $365.00) Can we now go on to important issues????? Republican presidential candidate (Business Insider)Mitt Romney deliberately paidmore in federal income taxes than the government required last year, according to a blog post from his campaign this afternoon.
The post, from Brad Malt, the trustee of Romney's blind trust, explains that the Romneys artificially kept their tax rate above 13 percent by claiming deductions for just over half of their $4 million charitable donation.
Romney has previously said that he never paid less than 13 percent on his federal income taxes.
Malt writes:
"The Romneys’ generous 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 Romney campaign will release the candidate's full 2011 income tax returns online this afternoon. Romney released his 2010 tax return earlier this year, and has always said he would release the 2011 returns once they were submitted to the IRS. So today's release is unlikely to satisfy those calling for the Republican candidate to release more years.
The campaign does appear to have made a concession to those demands, and says it will release a letter from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Romney's tax preparer, that will give a summary of Romney's tax rates from 1990 to 2009.
Malt pulls out these highlights from the letter:
  • In each yearduring 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 and his running mate Paul Ryan will also release physicians letters today.&

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