The world will get a look at Mitt Romney’s 2011 tax return this afternoon at 3 p.m. Eastern. Mr. Romney’s taxes have been the subject of relentless attacks by the Obama campaign, which has called for the Republican candidate to release at least five years of his returns. Mr. Romney previously provided his 2010 return and information based on estimates for his 2011 return, which had to be finished by the extended October 15 deadline.
Mr. Romney is clearly not succumbing to the pressure to release more returns, along with his 2011 taxes, but the campaign said they will also release a letter with a summary of Mr. Romney’s tax rates from 1990-2009 this afternoon. Though the big reveal is still about an hour away, the Romney campaign teased some details about what will be contained in today’s document drop including how much Mr. Romney made last year and what his average rate has been since 1990.
Last year, the Romneys made $13,696,951 in “mostly investment income.” They paid $1,935,708 in taxes for 2011, for an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent. In 2011, the Romneys gave $4,020,772 to charity, which was just under 30 percent of their total income.
From 1990 until 2009, the Romneys paid an average annual effective tax rate of 20.20 percent. The lowest tax rate they paid during this period was 13.66 percent.
The Romney campaign has created a special website where the tax return will be posted and a special email address, returns@mittromney.com, for anyone who has questions about the tax return. In addition to the tax information, the campaign will be releasing “physician letters” for both Mr. Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan. This means the public will finally be able to see just how well Mr. Ryan’s P90X routines have been working for him.
Update (3:23 p.m.): The Romney campaign’s website was down for several minutes, presumably due to high traffic, but the return and other information is now available online. In addition to Mr. Romney’s 2011 tax return, the campaign also posted Paul and Janna Ryan’s 2011 return. The Ryans had $262,294 in adjusted gross income for 2011 and gave just under five percent to charity.
