Romney Posts 2011 Tax Returns and Other Tax Info Online

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.

â€" Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) September 21, 2012

Romney paid effective tax rate of 14.1 percent in 2011; Obama paid an effective tax rate of 20.5 percent in 2011.

â€" Matthew Keys (@ProducerMatthew) September 21, 2012

For what it’s worth, articles about Romney’s taxes are currently the #1, #5 and #7 most popular items on the Bloomberg terminal.

â€" Jake Beckman (@jakebeckman) September 21, 2012

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.

â€" Dan Froomkin (@froomkin) September 21, 2012

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

â€" Dan Froomkin (@froomkin) September 21, 2012

Romney literally picked a tax rate and engineered his return to hit the mark

â€" John Cook (@johnjcook) September 21, 2012

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.

â€" Stefan Becket (@stefanjbecket) September 21, 2012

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.

Images courtesy of Flickr, Austen Hufford.