Mitt Romney Releases His 2011 Taxes

Well it took long enough!!! And even though Robney’s shady azz released them to the public, the dude still gets a side-eye from us because what millionaire Presidential Candidate doesn’t have his prior year taxes wrapped up before April 15th like the majority of us normal folk?!?!

Here’s the breakdown on Money Mitts numbers:

The Robneys earned $13.69 million in 2011, mostly income from his investments, and paid $1.9 million in taxes for an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent.

Romney earned $6.8 million from capital gains and another $3.6 million in interest. ZERO percent of his income came from wages which, you know, is the primary source of income for most Americans. Capital gains are taxed at a substantially lower rate than wages and salaries for high-earners.

Romney earned about $190,000 in author and speaking fees, as well as $260,390 for sitting on the board of Marriott International.

The Robneys donated $4.02 million to charity in 2011, nearly 30 percent of their income, helping to reduce their tax obligation AND the majority of Romneys’ charitable contributions went the Tyler Charitable Foundation (Romney’s own foundation).

Romneys trustee released a statement saying that the Romneys only claimed a tax deduction for $2.25 million of those charitable contributions to engineer a higher tax rate than they otherwise would have paid. This move was to “conform” to the candidate’s statement in August that he paid a federal income tax rate of at least 13 percent of his income in each of the last 10 years.

According to The Washington Post…

At a Republican presidential debate in January, on the same night he released his 2010 tax returns, Romney scoffed at the notion that he would pay more taxes than he is legally required. “You’ll see my income, how much taxes I’ve paid, how much I’ve paid to charity,” Romney said. “I pay all the taxes that are legally required and not a dollar more. I don’t think you want someone as the candidate for president who pays more taxes than he owes.”

In case you didn’t know, Romney’s 2011 return is 379 pages long however, the 2011 return of VP candidate Paul Ryan is only 32.

One other note–Romney’s 2011 income and tax obligation are significantly less than what his campaign estimated earlier in January. They released an estimate saying that Romney earned $20.9 million in 2011 and would pay about $3.2 million in taxes–for an effective rate of 15.4 percent.

“The Romneys’ income can vary significantly from year to year, depending primarily on what investments are sold and how much they have appreciated or depreciated,” Davis said…the couple filed for an extension in April, as they had in prior years, because the investment information required to prepare their tax returns was not available by the April 15 tax deadline. She said, however, that all taxes owed for 2011 were paid by April 15 and that they filed their returns on Friday.

Romney, like many other Americans with large investment portfolios, pays a lower tax rate than those whose incomes come from wages. Investment profits are taxed at a flat 15 percent rate, way below the highest rates taxed on “regular” wages.

One last round of facts for you to take in:

Barack released his 2000-2011 (Federal and Illinois) returns, Biden submitted his taxes from 1998-2011 (Federal, Delaware, and Virginia), and before that, Clinton released his taxes from 1992-1999.

As far as Republicans are concerned, their release record is astounding. Mitt, Lyan, McCain, and Crazy Palin only released two years worth of taxes (Newt released one). Before that George Dubya and Shady Cheney both released 2000-2007 but…Bush only released partial returns. For tax year 2000, Bush released only his Form 1040; Cheney provided a summary of his taxes, but released no forms.

SMH…Let the shadiness ensue.

This is making us real happy that election season is almost over!

Images via WENN