Romney earned 12 times more than Obama, had nearly half the tax rate

Tax returns released by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Tuesday revealed that his 2010 effective tax rate was almost half of President Barack Obama's, even though the former Massachusetts governor earned about $20 million more.

According to 2010 tax returns (PDF) released by the White House, the president paid $454,000 in federal taxes on $1.8 million earned -- or about 25 percent of his gross income. Over the same time period, Romney paid about $3 million in federal taxes on gross income of $21.7 million, a rate of about 13.8 percent.

Estimates released by the campaign showed that Romney expected to pay $3.2 million in taxes for 2011 on $20.9 million income, an effective 15.4 percent rate.

"I pay all the taxes that are legally required, not a dollar more," the candidate boasted during a debate on NBC News Monday. "I'm proud of the fact that I pay a lot of taxes."

Romney's returns revealed that he gave $7.1 million in charitable contributions over two years, which included at least $4.1 million to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The nearly 550 pages of documents released Tuesday also showed that Romney had a bank account in Switzerland, as well as investments in other tax havens like Luxembourg, Ireland and the Cayman Islands.

On a conference call Tuesday, a spokesman for the Romney campaign told reporters that the Swiss account was closed in 2010 and the candidate did not directly make decisions regarding any of the offshore accounts.

"The income earned on that account is taxed just as any other domestic or other bank account owned by the blind trust," Brad Malt, Romney's trustee, explained. "These entities are not evading one dime of taxes."

(H/T: Politico)