WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats are charging that Mitt Romney manipulated his deductions to keep his overall 2011 federal income tax rate below a certain level for political purposes.
The tax return they filed Friday with the IRS shows Romney and his wife, Ann, donated roughly $4 million to charities last year but only claimed a deduction of $2.25 million.
The returns showed that the couple paid an effective rate of 14.1 percent for 2011, paying about $1.9 million in taxes on income of $13.7 million.
Romney told reporters in August he had never paid below 13 percent in taxes in any given year over the past 20. Had he taken the full charitable deduction, it would have pushed his tax liability below 13 percent.
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