Romney’s Tax Return Could Be a ‘Teaching Moment,’ Says Expert
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney relented to pressure and released two years of tax returns today, an action that an expert on investing and entrepreneurship believes can be used as a "teaching moment" to educate voters on the nation's complicated tax structure. The Romney’s 2010 tax return shows the couple paid 13.9 percent in taxes, and an estimate of their 2011 return shows an estimated 15.4 percent tax rate. With both years combined, this amounts to about $6.2 million in taxes on about $42.4 million of income. The returns are more than 500 pages and can be found here. The couple gave around $4.1 million to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church. ($2.6 million in 2011 and $1.5 million in 2010). They also contributed to The Tyler Foundation thus making their charitable contributions well above 10 percent. One reason Romney may have been hesitant to release his tax returns are due to the complex nature of the return, it takes more than a 30 second sound byte to explain. For example, the vast majority of the couple’s income has already been taxed, thus underestimating his total tax burden on the same dollar. [...]