Comparing Willard's Taxes To Others

This is not a new chart. It was posted by the Washington Post last January. But I just found it, and I thought it was very interesting. The Washington Post wanted to know how Romney's tax rate stacked up against that of other presidential candidates. In an attempt to be fair, they looked at tax returns from other candidates that were from two years before they ran for president, since the only return Romney has released was from 2010 (and sadly, even that return was incomplete because it did not include the required page for foreign investments and accounts).

Of course, tax rates don't mean a lot without knowing the income of the candidate (and his wife). Here are the incomes on which the above candidates paid those tax rates:

Romney...............$21.7 million
Bush...............$18.5 million
McCain...............$6.4 million
Kerry...............$5.4 million
Obama...............$991,296
Dole...............$596,908
Clinton...............$268,646
Dukakis...............$108,957

The newspaper could have included income and tax rates for other years, since most of those listed have released multiple returns. For instance, President Obama (who has released 12 years of returns) made about $4.1 million the following year, and paid a 33.3% tax rate. But since Romney has only released one partial return, they didn't.

Romney made much more than any of the other presidential candidate. The only one who came close was George W. Bush, and he paid a significantly higher tax rate (20.55%). Only one other candidate paid as low a tax rate as Romney did -- John Kerry (and I make no apologies for Kerry, since I believe his and his wife's investment income should have been taxed at the same rate as earned income is taxed).

Is this why Romney refuses to release more of his tax returns? Is 2010 the year he paid the highest tax rate of all recent years? Would releasing more returns show that in some years he has paid a far lower tax rate (and maybe even nothing at all)? That's what I believe. But we may never know, because he seems to have made the decision that it is better to take the political hit than to reveal whatever embarrassing facts are lurking in the unreleased tax returns.

Still, it is legitimate for people to wonder -- WHAT IS ROMNEY TRYING TO HIDE?