President Obama Has a Higher Tax Rate than Mitt Romney

The White House / Reuters
Alexander Abad-Santos 2,674 Views Apr 13, 2012

President Obama's Federal income tax rate is 20.5 percent, which is actually higher than Mitt Romney's 15.4 percent despite making around  $20 million less than the Republican frontrunner. Obama and his team have released his 2011 Federal income and gift and tax returns today. (You can find them here.)  Obama and the First Lady are paying that rate on an adjusted gross income of $798,674, which is $20.1 million less than what reportedly Romney made in 2011. Of course, Romney paid around $3.2 million on that handsome sum, and the Obamas are paying $162,074. 

 "The President believes we must reform our tax system which is why he has proposed policies like the Buffett Rule that would ask the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share while protecting families making under $250,000 from seeing their taxes go up," writes Jay Carney on the White House blog, not missing a chance to spin the filing.

Yes, nearly $800,000 is quite a haul for most Americans, but it's worth pointing that the Obamas have taken a severe pay cut since moving to the White House. As The Wall Street Journal's Damien Paletta tweets: "The Obamas' income appears to be shrinking. $5.5M in 2009. $1.73M in 2010. $790K in 2011, according to new tax returns." 

The the Obamas' tax return can be found here; The Bidens' here

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