OK, Romney released his 2011 tax return.
- In 2011, the Romneys paid $1,935,708 in taxes on $13,696,951 in mostly investment income.
- The Romneys’ effective tax rate for 2011 was 14.1%.
- The Romneys donated $4,020,772 to charity in 2011, amounting to nearly 30% of their income.
Holy Buffett, Mitt only paid 14.1% in Federal income taxes … a lower rate than Warren’s secretary.
Scoundrel.
Let’s re-write the tax code.
Not so fast.
Last fall, the Homa Files coined a new metric: the GBSR™ – “Give Back to Society Rate”
We defined the GBSR™ as the sum of taxes paid plus charitable contributions – since those are all money that’s supposed to be going to the common good, albeit administered by different organizations – divided by AGI.
In Romney’s case, his release says that he made $13.7 million … paid $1.9 million in taxes … and donated a whopping $4.02 million to charities.
So, his tax rate may sound meager @ 14.1%, but his GBSR™ is about 43% – and that’s not counting state & local income taxes.
My bet: add S&L taxes in and Mitt‘s GBSR™ is way over 45%.
So, it just may be that the tax code is leading fat cats to do the right thing – it’s just that they’re giving much of their dough to private charities instead of the Feds.
Do you blame them?
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Romney’s 20 year tax history
According to the Standard ,,,
- In each year during the entire 20-year period, the Romneys owed both state and federal income taxes.
- Over the entire 20-year period, the average annual effective federal tax rate was 20.20%.
- Over the entire 20-year period, the lowest annual effective federal personal tax rate was 13.66%.
- Over the entire 20-year period, the Romneys gave to charity an average of 13.45% of their adjusted gross income.
- Over the entire 20-year period, Romney’s GBSR™ the total federal and state taxes owed plus the total charitable donations deducted represented 38.49% of total AGI.
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For comparison …
Filers in Obama’s millionaire range ($200,000 to $250,000) donate about 2.5% of their income to charities.
The Homa Files 