Thursday, August 23, 2012

Ryan Paid Federal Tax Rate of 20% in 2011 on Income of $323,416

BY BRIAN FALER

BLOOMBERG
(Bloomberg) Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan paid effective federal tax rates of 20 percent in 2011 and 15.9 percent in 2010, tax returns released Friday night show.
Paul Ryan
In 2011, Ryan and his wife, Janna, paid $64,764 in federal taxes on $323,416 of adjusted gross income. In 2010, the Ryans paid $34,233 in taxes on $215,417 of adjusted gross income.
Over the past two years, they have donated a total of about $15,500 to charities, including the Boy Scouts of America and St. John Vianney Parish in Janesville, Wis., their hometown.
Presumed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney announced Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman, as his running mate on Aug. 11. The Ryan returns were released by Romney’s campaign.
Romney so far has released only his 2010 returns, which showed he and his wife Ann paid a 13.9 percent effective federal tax rate on more than $21 million in income.
The tax rate paid by the Ryans topped Romney’s for that year, in part because a much larger share of income for the Ryans came from wages, rather than investments taxed at lower rates. The top marginal income tax rate is 35 percent while capital gains are taxed at 15 percent.
In 2011, Ryan reported $153,359 in wages, $33,153 in capital gains and $29,987 in dividends. Another $116,043 came from “rental real estate, royalties, partnerships, S corporations, trusts, etc.” Among the itemized deductions the Ryans claimed in 2011 was $16,143 in mortgage interest.
‘Several’ Years
The previous year, Ryan reported $153,741 in wages as well as $26,052 in dividends and $3,135 in capital gains. Another $39,013 came from “rental real estate, royalties, partnerships, S corporations, trusts, etc.”
Though Ryan said he gave Romney “several” years of tax returns during his vice-presidential vetting process, the filings released Friday night matched the number of returns Romney has said he is willing to make public. The former Massachusetts governor has pledged to release his 2011 return when it is completed, while rejecting calls from Democrats and some Republicans that he release additional years of returns.
Under pressure from Democrats and some Republicans to release more information about his personal finances, Romney said on Aug. 16 that he has reviewed his returns “and over the past 10 years, I never paid less than 13 percent.” He also said that “if you add, in addition, the amount that goes to charity, why, the number gets well above 20 percent.”
Obama Offer
President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign earlier Friday called on Romney to release at least five years of returns, saying it would let the issue rest if he did so.
Romney’s campaign manager, Matt Rhoades, rebuffed the offer, responding that “it is clear that President Obama wants nothing more than to talk about Governor Romney’s tax returns instead of the issues that matter to voters, like putting Americans back to work, fixing the economy and reining in spending.”
The average household paid 17.4 percent in all federal taxes in 2009, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. That figure includes all federal levies, such as the Social Security payroll tax.
Obama and his wife, Michelle, paid 20.5 percent in federal taxes on $789,674 in adjusted gross income for 2011.
Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, reported paying $87,900 in federal taxes for 2011 on $379,035 in adjusted gross income for a 23.2 percent rate.

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