President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have finished and released information about their federal income tax returns, but Mitt Romney has asked for a delay in filing for six months!
Obama made far less in 2011, due to declining book sales, with his income being about $790,000, his taxes $162,000, and his effective tax rate being 20.5 percent.
Joe Biden, never well to do at any point of his life, reported income of $379,000, taxes of $88,000, and an effective tax rate of about 23 percent.
Both gave substantially higher percentages to charity than Romney, Rick Santorum, or Newt Gingrich reported in 2010.
Romney has what is believed to be $23 million in income from investments, with expected taxes of over $3.2 million, meaning a tax rate of about 15 percent, and in the past only about 10 percent charity, mostly to his own Mormon Church.
By delaying his 2011 tax returns, Romney only makes it a bigger deal closer to the election, and the call for him to release tax returns as extensive as he supplied John McCain in 2008 when he was considered for Vice President, will grow by leaps and bounds, particularly with the fact that his father, George Romney, gave tax information for about 20 years before his run for President in 1968! Why can’t Mitt be as forthcoming as his dad was 44 years ago?
And of course, whoever is the Vice Presidential nominee, will also have his or her taxes, effective tax rate, and charity contributions analyzed and exposed!
All this is not good for the Romney campaign, and it will be difficult to overcome the fact that Romney would be the wealthiest President ever upon taking office, more than George Washington was at the end of his life, with the certainty that someday, Romney will, just by investments, be the first billionaire President ever by the end of his life, if he serves in the Oval Office!