WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney paid Uncle Sam nearly $2 million in taxes on $13.7 million in income last year — a tax rate of 14.1 percent that was actually higher than what he legally owed, according to 2011 federal tax returns that Romney and his wife, Ann, released yesterday.
Romney has faced intense pressure from President Obama’s campaign to release as many as a dozen years of returns. But he has insisted that he would release only two — the returns he has put out for 2010 and 2011.
Romney’s latest tax return shows that most of his earnings from the fortune he built running Bain Capital come in the form of investment income taxed at a rate of 15 percent, which is lower than the top rate of 35 percent on earned income.
The Republican presidential nominee donated $4 million to charity last year — nearly 30 percent of his income — but claimed a deduction for only $2.25 million.
Brad Malt, who oversees Romney’s blind trusts, wrote in a letter released by the campaign that Romney and wife Ann “limited their deductions of charitable contributions to conform to the governor’s statement (in August, based on the January estimate of income, that he paid at least 13 percent in income taxes in each of the last 10 years).”
If he had taken all of his deductions in 2011, he would have paid a rate closer to 12 percent.
As in past years, the single largest beneficiary of the Romneys’ charity was his Mormon church, which received $1.12 million. Romney also donated $214,516 to the Tyler Foundation, his charity for kids with epilepsy.
Romney’s overpayment for last year to the feds doesn’t jibe with his statement in July that, “If I had paid more than are legally due, I don’t think I’d be qualified to become president.”
In a bid to address questions about his taxes for years before 2010, the Romney campaign yesterday also released a letter from his accountants reporting that, from 1990 to 2009, he paid an average annual effective rate of 20.2 percent and that in no year was his rate lower than 13.66 percent.
The report from his accountant would mean that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was wrong when he speculated that Romney may have paid no taxes at some point over the past decade.
During an interview with “60 Minutes” to be broadcast tomorrow, Romney defended his campaign, which was thrown back this week by a leaked tape from a Florida fund-raiser where he described 47 percent of the country as “victims.”
“Well, it doesn’t need a turnaround. We’ve got a campaign which is tied with an incumbent president to the United States,” he said.
Meanwhile, a plane carrying Ann Romney had to make an emergency landing in Denver after an electrical fire sent smoke into the cabin.
Mitt Romney (Reuters)
Additional reporting by S.A. Miller