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The Romney campaign revealed Friday afternoon
that Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann, paid a 14.1 percent effective
federal tax rate in 2011, paying $1.9 million in taxes on $13.7 million
in income, much of it from investments. (That $13.7 million in income
most likely puts him in the top 0.01 percent of earners, by the way.)
Where
does that effective tax rate put him in the universe of taxpayers? The
Romneys paid a higher effective tax rate than the average middle-income
American, though a significantly lower rate than the average rich, or
very rich, American.
According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy
Center, the middle quintile of taxpayers – earning between $33,542 and
$59,486 a year – had an effective direct federal tax rate of about 12
percent in 2011. The top 1 percent of earners, making more than $532,613
a year, paid a direct federal tax rate of about 22.7 percent. And the
top 0.1 percent of earners, making more than $2,178,886 a year, paid a
direct federal tax rate of about 21.4 percent.
(We’re just using
income, employee-side payroll and estate taxes in this comparison. A
fuller picture would include state and local, employer-side payroll and
corporate taxes.)
Still, the
Romneys revealed that they paid more taxes than they really owed,
pushing their effective federal rate higher. The couple made more than
$4 million in charitable donations in 2011, but claimed a deduction for
only $2.25 million of those donations “to conform to the governor’s
statement” that he “paid at least 13 percent in income taxes in each of
the last 10 years.”
In light of that, expect Mr. Romney to take
some heat for this statement, which he made to ABC News in July: “ I
don’t pay more than are legally due and frankly if I had paid more than
are legally due I don’t think I’d be qualified to become president. I’d
think people would want me to follow the law and pay only what the tax
code requires.”
source: /thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com
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