Romney paid 14.1 percent tax rate in 2011
Updated 4:18 p.m. Eastern Time
(CBS News) Mitt Romney on Friday released his full 2011 tax returns, which show that he and his wife paid $1,935,708 that year on $13,696,951 of income - a 14.1 percent tax rate.
His campaign also released a notarized letter from the Romneys' tax preparer, PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP, stating that from 1990 through 2009, Romney paid an average annual effective federal tax rate of 20.2 percent.
In 2011, the couple donated 30 percent of their income - more than $4 million - to charity. They claimed a deduction for $2.25 million of those charitable contributions.
The returns were posted online Friday afternoon, shortly after Brad Malt, the trustee of the Romney's blind trust, announced in a blog post that they were forthcoming.
The Romney campaign also posted Paul Ryan and his wife's 2011 joint tax returns, which revealed an adjusted gross income of $323,416, a taxable income of $253,674, and a tax liability of $64,764. The Ryans' home mortgage interest deduction was $16,143 and their charitable deduction was $12,991.
Romney previously released his 2010 returns, which showed he paid a 13.9 rate that year on $21.7 million in income. He had also released an estimate of his 2011 returns. Romney, whose net worth is around $250 million, has paid a lower tax rate than many Americans who make less than he does because much of his income comes from capital gains. Such investment income is taxed at a lower rate than wages.
President Obama paid a 26 percent rate in 2010 and a rate of slightly more than 20 percent in 2011. The president has released 12 years of returns, matching the 12 years Romney's father, George Romney, released when he ran for president in 1968.
Democrats have called on Romney to release more than two years of his returns, and some have suggested he is refusing to do so because there were years in which he paid no income taxes in the past. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, citing an unnamed Bain Capital investor, has suggested Romney did not pay taxes for a decade.
This release is designed to rebut those claims: According to the letter from PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP, the Romneys owed both state and federal income taxes in each year between 1990 and 2009.
Over the 20 year period, the letter stated, the lowest annual rate paid by the couple was 13.66 percent. The Romney's average effective state personal income tax rate was 8.36 percent, and they gave an average of 13.45 percent of their adjusted gross income to charity. Also according to the letter, the total federal income taxes owed, total state income taxes reported, and total donations deducted during the period represent 38.49 percent of the couple's total adjusted gross income for the period, according to the letter.
The campaign also posted letters from both Gov. Romney and Rep. Ryan's physicians, making public their current states of health.
Romney's physician wrote that the candidate's last visit, in August of this year, "revealed a healthy appearing, energetic, strong, physically fit male. He appears years younger than his age." According to the letter, his current medical issues include high cholesterol, and he has a family history of cardiac arrhythmias, heart attack, and prostate cancer. Ryan's physician described him as in "excellent" health, and notes a paternal history of early-onset coronary artery disease.
The president has attacked Romney over his refusal to release more returns and suggested he uses tax trickery and offshore accounts to reduce his effective rate. A recent Obama campaign ad featured a narrator saying, "Makes you wonder if some years he paid any taxes at all. We don't know because Romney has released just one full year of his tax returns."
Malt's blog post includes this paragraph: "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."
In January, Romney said, "I pay all the taxes that are legally required and not a dollar more. I don't think you want someone as the candidate for president who pays more taxes than he owes."
Romney's campaign told CBS News: "He has been clear that no American need pay more than he or she owes under the law. At the same time, he was in the unique position of having made a commitment to the public that his tax rate would be above 13%. He directed his preparers to ensure that he is consistent with that statement."
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Why do we need to continue to pay a middle man for somethin as important as LIFE... We should all be "ENTITLED" to healtcare and why should we only be able to get it if we are paying the insurance companies profits. This is crazy that our lives hang in the balance of the insurance companies making money.
Contracting out government work does not save money. We once again pay a middle man to do the work. It costs more money..... Who owns those insurance companies??? Oh yeah, the entitled people. I believe that would be the 1%.
So I guess Romney is previleged enough to pay less taxes on his income than the rest of us. So your telling me that the more money you make, the less obligated you are to pay taxes on that money.
With this information Romney is proving that you Romney haters are wrong about him! He DOES care about the poor and I expect his actual tax returns will soon be released and you haters and Obama and Senator Reid will have some apologizing to do!
By his own actions he shows that not can the rich pay more taxes they do so voluntarily. Because it certainly was not a political decision to not deduct all his charitable donations and have his effective tax rate be below 13%.
He only did that to make an earlier statement about the percentage he paid look truthful.
But never fear, as soon as the fuss dies down, he'll file and amended return an be paying less than 11%.
He has it both ways - as usual.
What we know:
1. Romneys had a Swiss bank account in 2009.
2. Bank was UBS.
3. UBS, after being fined $780,000,000 by the IRS for conspiring with its depositors' to conceal taxable income, released to IRS the names of 4,700 Americans with UBS accounts.
4. IRS offered amnesty to Americans with unreported foreign bank accounts in March 2009.
5. In 2009 IRS received approximately 30,000 requests for amnesty from Americans with foreign bank accounts.
6. The penalties for foreign account tax evaders who failed to obtain amnesty were draconian.
What we do not know:
1. Whether the Romneys asked for amnesty.
2. Whether there is any other compeling reason for refusal by Romneys to produce the 2007, 2008 and 2009 tax returns.
3. Why Romneys closed UBS account after UBS was caught.
Jim Beatty