Hrrrmmmm

Josh Marshall

Rick Newman notes that when Romney released his preliminary 2011 tax return estimates in January he was reporting $20,901,075 in adjusted gross income. The final returns released today show $13,696,961 in adjusted gross income.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/09/hrrrmmmm_1.php

Rick Newman

The Mysteries in Mitt Romney's Tax Return

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The most likely explanation is that Romney's accountants transferred income from Romney's personal return to one of the three trusts that also generate considerable income, almost all of it from investments. It will take a detailed examination of the 2010 and 2011 documents to figure out what changed, but here's a clue: Romney's campaign has begun to focus on the "personal" tax rate paid by Romney, rather than the tax rate that might be associated with the trusts and his total income from all sources.

This matters because Romney is subject to a very low tax rate as it is, since most of his earnings come from investments, which are taxed at a lower rate than wages. Romney hasn't released tax documents prior to 2010, but some tax experts think his overall tax rate could have been very close to zero during at least a couple of years, possibly because of capital losses suffered during the stock-market wipeout of 2008, which zeroed out earnings for many investors.

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The Romney campaign now says that since 1990, "the lowest annual effective federal personal tax rate" Romney paid was 13.66 percent. In other words, the rate on what might be characterized as his personal income never fell below that threshold.

But that doesn't account for the three trusts, or other investment vehicles that may have existed prior to 2010. And it's unusual to limit the claim to "personal" taxes when Romney has acknowledged other types of income. So it's possible that the effective tax rate on the trusts was very low at some point—and maybe even zero, which would have indicated a net loss for the year.

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http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/rick-newman/2012/09/21/the-mysteries-in-mitt-romneys-tax-return