Mitt Romney’s Lose-Lose Tax Problem – Spectator Blogs
How rich is Mitt Romney? Wealthy enough to voluntarily pay $250,000 more tax than he needed to last year. That’s the most notable thing about the Romneys’ 2011 tax return released yesterday evening. Mitt and Ann reported income of $13.7 million last year, most of it from investments. They gave $4 million to charity (most of it through the Mormon church) but “only” deducted $2.25 million of that sum from their taxable income. The reason for doing so is obvious: this ensured that Romney’s “effective” tax rate was around 14% of the couple’s income and not, as it might otherwise have been, a politically-embarrassingly low percentage. This is, of course,