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Tax data show Romney paid $1.95M
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WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Friday released income tax returns showing that he and wife, Ann, paid an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent last year.
The Romneys, who filed their 2011 taxes Friday, paid $1.9 million in taxes on $13.7 million in income, most of it from investments. They donated $4 million to charity, about 30 percent of their income, but deducted only $2.25 million of it from their taxable income in order to keep their tax bill above 13 percent, as Mr. Romney had promised during his campaign.
Mr. Romney's campaign also released a notarized summary from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, the family's tax preparer, declaring that the former Massachusetts governor and business executive paid taxes every year between 1990 and 2009 and saying the average tax rate was 20.2 percent. It said he paid an effective tax rate of at least 13.66 percent every year.
That countered unsubstantiated charges from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., that Mr. Romney hadn't paid taxes in 10 years. Mr. Reid said he was told that by an unidentified investor at Bain Capital, the company Mr. Romney co-founded.
The ongoing furor over Mr. Romney's taxes had prompted other Democrats and several Republicans to demand that he provide more tax information than the 2010 records and 2011 estimates he released earlier this year. Mr. Romney had said earlier that he would release the 2011 data when they became available, but he has consistently argued that giving more tax details would only give President Barack Obama's campaign more ammunition.
Friday's release did nothing to satisfy Mr. Obama's campaign, Democrats and other Romney critics.
"Today's release of Mitt Romney's 2011 tax returns confirms what we already knew -- that people like Mitt Romney pay a lower tax rate than many middle-class families because of a set of complex loopholes and tax shelters only available to those at the top," said Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter. "While the tax return for the one year released today continues to mask Romney's true wealth and income from Bain Capital, leaving the American people in the dark about critical details about his finances, it does confirm that he continues to profit from millions of dollars invested overseas."
Mr. Reid on Friday criticized Mr. Romney's move to pay higher taxes this year.
"The information released today reveals that Mitt Romney manipulated one of the only two years of tax returns he's seen fit to show the American people -- and then only to 'conform' with his public statements," Mr. Reid said. "That raises the question: What else in those returns has Romney manipulated?"
But former Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Fred Goldberg, in a statement released by Mr. Romney's campaign, said, "These returns reflect the complexity of our tax laws and the types of investment activity that I would anticipate for persons in their circumstances. There is no indication or suggestion of any tax-motivated or aggressive tax planning activities."
Mr. Romney makes most of his money now from investments, which are taxed at a lower rate than a salary. Earlier his year, he defended his 2010 tax return, noting that he took all of the deductions allowed by law.
"I don't pay more than are legally due, and, frankly, if I had paid more than are legally due, I don't think I'd be qualified to become president," he told ABC News.
Since then, however, he decided not to deduct all of his charitable contributions from his taxable income in 2011, because that would have reduced his tax bill below 13 percent of his total income, aides said. He had said he never paid less than that.
The campaign's 1990-2009 summary covers years when Mr. Romney's salary accounted for a much higher percentage of his income and was taxed at a higher rate than his investment income, which mushroomed in later years.
The accounting company said the Romneys paid an effective tax rate of at least 13.66 percent every year. They gave an average of 13.45 percent to charity over the two decades.
First Published September 22, 2012 12:17 am
