There is a lot of talk on Romney’s tax returns. Recently he released that he never paid more than 13.9% tax and I was thinking how can that be when the 15% tax bracket is for those earning $69,000 and less? I discovered that the 13.9% is his tax due in 2010 ($3,009,766 ) divided by his income (21,661,344). For those of you who want to compare apples to apples get out your tax return and take line 61 and divide it by line 22. It is important to note that line 22 of the tax return is the total amount of income BEFORE any adjustments or deductions are made, so it is the best chance of being able to compare apples to apples.
I checked mine and discovered that if I were to release the same information my number would be 14.4%. My marginal tax rate is much higher and I assume so is Romney’s. The marginal rate is the rate you pay on the last dollar of income. Remember we have a tiered system so the first dollar is not taxed the same as the last dollar and the last dollar you pay tax on would be in the highest tax bracket.
I assure you my income is not even close to 5% of what Romney pays in taxes. It is much more in line with the average Joe, so I encourage you to get out your tax return and do the math so that you are comparing apples to apples when thinking about Romney’s 13.9%.