Mitt Romney has released his two most recent tax returns:
Mitt Romney offered a partial snapshot of his vast personal fortune late Monday, disclosing income of $21.7 million in 2010 and $20.9 million last year — virtually all of it profits, dividends or interest from investments.
That’s pretty impressive. Not the fact that Romney paid a 13.9% tax rate on this haul — we already pretty much knew that. No, I’m talking about the fact that he made $21 million each year. Most public reports put Romney’s wealth in the neighborhood of $250 million, which means he got a return of about 8.4% both years. That’s a real return of around 7% during a generally slow-growth period when most people are scrounging around just to find safe investments that pay a point or two more than treasuries. When it comes to managing big pots of money, it looks like Romney hasn’t lost his old magic.
