Mitt Romney and his wife earned more than $20 million in each of the last two years ? including a total of $13 million from Bain Capital investments ? and paid a rate of about 15 percent in federal taxes, according to tax information released by his presidential campaign Tuesday morning.
Romney had been under pressure to release multiple years worth of tax returns from rivals in both parties who have made issues of his wealth, tax rate, foreign investments and his time at the helm of the private equity firm Bain Capital.
Continue ReadingThe documents posted on the campaign?s website Tuesday ? including 2010 tax returns for Mitt and Ann Romney, their blind trusts and charitable foundation, as well as a yet-to-be-filed estimated joint personal return for 2011 ? provided fodder for more scrutiny and attacks of Romney as a corporate profiteer.
The returns show that the Romneys earned nearly $21.7 million in 2010 mostly from investments and paid $3 million in federal taxes, while in 2011, they earned $20.9 million and are expected to pay $3.2 million in taxes.
They showed a tax rate far lower than those of his rivals, and foreign investments including a since-closed $3 million Swiss bank account and a Cayman Islands-based fund as well investments in Solamere Capital, a private equity fund that was started by Romney?s son Tagg and the campaign?s finance director Spencer Zwick and that sought $10 million investments from some of Romney?s biggest donors. Additionally, the Romney campaign revealed that among the capital gains earned by the Romneys was $13 million reaped during the covered years from investments he made while at Bain.
In a conference call with reporters detailing the taxes, Romney?s campaign stressed the couples? charitable contributions of about $7 million over the two years, and cast the tax documents as a window into the affairs of someone who has achieved the American Dream, and is intent on giving back.
They ?reflect that Gov. Romney earned his wealth as a highly successful businessman,? said top campaign lawyer Ben Ginsberg. ?His success has created wealth for his family and jobs for around 100,000 Americans. He is very proud of that success,? said Ginsberg. ?Gov. Romney has paid 100 percent of what he owes.?
The Romneys? tax rate was far lower than the 2010 rates paid by President Barack Obama, 26 percent, or Newt Gingrich, 31.5 percent.
But Ginsberg stressed their rate was a function of laws that assess a 15-percent rate on investment dividends like that which forms the bulk of the Romney?s income, and that ?much of the income on which he is taxed at the 15 percent rate has already been subject to tax at the corporate level at a rate of 35 percent.?
Still, Ginsberg also offered an alternative formula for calculating effective tax rates as a percentage of taxable income ? rather than as a percentage of adjusted gross income ? which, if applied to the Romneys, would show a tax rate closer to 20 percent of their income.
The campaign was also ready with answers to other aspects of Romney?s taxes that have drawn criticism, stressing that the couple had nothing to do with their investments, which are administered by a blind trust, and that the foreign investments were not made to evade U.S. taxes, but rather were subject to taxation as if they were domestic.
?The Romney?s are not involved in buying or selling any of those assets, nor do we provide disclosure of individual assets to either Gov or Mrs. Romney,? said Brad Malt, the lawyer who administers the Romney?s trusts. ?The only time that Gov and Mrs. Romney have seen the detailed holding of these trusts is when we file the personal disclosure forms mandated by federal election law.?
That would mean that Romney would have seen detailed breakdowns of his blind trusts holdings at least in 2007 and 2011, when he filed personal financial disclosures with the Federal Election Commission, and possibly in 2008 when he submitted years of returns to the McCain campaign for vetting for a possible vice presidential nomination.
Romney?s campaign did not respond to a question about what Romney?s review would have entailed, but on the call, Malt suggested that he closed the Swiss bank account in early 2010 for practical, rather than political purposes.
?I regularly review Gov Romney?s investment and just in connection with one of my periodic reviews, I decided that this account wasn?t serving any particularly purpose,? he said of the account, which produced $1,700 in interest in 2010. ?It might or might not be consistent with Gov. Romney?s political views. The taxes were all fully paid, etc. but it just wasn?t worth it, and I closed the account.?
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