Mitt Romney Tax Returns Show 13.9% Rate; Less than Secretaries; Illegal Tax Havens

Mitt Romney and Wife on Campaign Airplane

Mitt Romney released two years of tax returns on Tuesday after pressure from rival Newt Gingrich and voters.

The Romneys earned about $21.7 million in 2010 and paid $3 million in federal taxes or less than 13.9 percent. They earned $20.9 million in 2011 and expect to pay $3.2 million in taxes.

People making over $100,000 but under $1 million per year pay double the tax percent than Romney.

Romney had a bank account in Switzerland that has apparently has been closed, but he still has investments held in the Cayman Islands, a well-known tax haven, according to Politico. Both types of bank accounts are illegal for U.S. citizens if they are dodging taxes.

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Democrats took aim at the Republican presidential candidate on Tuesday, saying the multi-millionaire’s low tax rate is the “perfect example” of why the U.S. Tax Code needs to be overhauled.

“An individual who makes during a two-year period $43 million and pays a tax rate of less than 15 percent suggests that maybe things need to be changed a little bit,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said at a news conference, where he and his leadership team repeatedly invoked the former Massachusetts governor.

The assault on Romney came a day after President Barack Obama delivered his State of Union address to joint session of Congress, calling for those making at least $1 million a year to pay a 30 percent minimum tax.

New York Senator Chuck Schumer, who heads messaging for Senate Democrats, said the Tax Code needs to be reformed so that millionaires and billionaires are not paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries, something known as the “Buffett Rule.”

“It’s a priority for us to act on some kind of Romney, I mean Buffett Rule this year,” Schumer said.

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, spoke about recent revelations that Romney has kept investments in illegal offshore accounts.

“If we have reached a point in America where it’s considered normal and expected that an American business leader opens a Swiss bank account or invests in notorious tax havens like the Cayman Islands, if that has become normal, I think we need to have a new normal,” Durbin said.

Senate Democrats’ agenda to bolster Obama’s re-election chances includes extending the Social Security payroll tax holiday, raising taxes on the wealthy and closing corporate tax loopholes.

“The president’s blueprint for restoring economic fairness for the middle class will be the basis for our agenda this year,” Schumer said. “Like the president, with the president, we will focus like a laser on the middle class.”