A true one percent Presidential candidate:
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Thursday that he has paid a federal tax rate of at least 13 percent in each of the last 10 years, offering his fullest explanation to date of his tax status.
“I did go back and look at my taxes and over the past 10 years I never paid less than 13 percent. I think the most recent year is 13.6 or something like that. So I paid taxes every single year,” he told reporters Thursday.
His running mate isn’t as well off. He’s just a 5 percenter:
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney found a running mate wealthier than most of us. Although not nearly as rich as Romney, Rep. Paul Ryan has a net worth of about $4.5 million and earned at least $344,000 last year, putting him in the top 5 percent of income earners. Most of his money comes from his marriage and inheritances.
At a glance, Ryan’s finances reflect an upper middle-class family: Ryan mortgages his home — six bedrooms with 5,700 square feet on less than one acre — though it’s no gilded mansion. He and his wife, Janna, support three children, and she’s now a stay-at-home mom.
But a review of Ryan’s financial statements by The Associated Press shows he is in the wealthiest percentiles of Americans. His income is between $344,000 and $1.4 million. Much of his money comes from a trust fund set up following his mother-in-law’s death, as well as investments in natural resources. He also earns an annual salary as a member of Congress of $174,000.
Not that Ryan isn’t doing a little his financial gimmickry. You can’t be a 1-percenter without some kind accounting gimmicks:
Rep. Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney’s new running mate, amended two years’ worth of congressional financial disclosure reports in June to include an income-producing trust worth between $1 million and $5 million, USA Today reports.
The trust, which Ryan’s wife Janna Ryan inherited in 2010 after her mother’s death, was previously left off Ryan’s financial disclosure reports. In documents filed with the Clerk of the House, Ryan said they were left off his 2010 and 2011 reports as an “inadvertent omission,” according to USA Today. He reported that the trust produced at least $15,000 in income in 2010 and between $100,001 and $1 million in 2011.
Members of Congress every year are required to report their wealth and liabilities in broad ranges, so it’s impossible to determine their exact net worth. USA Today notes that members of Congress often amend their financial disclosure reports as Ryan has and that there’s nothing to suggest Ryan’s omission wasn’t inadvertent.
