Mitt Romney didn’t spend the entire day addressing his adviser’s suggestion that he would support Israel launching a preemptive strike against Iran. He also had to deal with more questions about his taxes. In an interview with ABC News’ David Muir, Romney was unable to say whether he’d ever paid less than his 2010 rate of 13.9 percent, which is a lower rate than many middle-class Americans pay. However, he assured voters that he hasn’t been overpaying his taxes (which we’re not sure anyone was worried about). “I don’t pay more than are legally due and frankly if I had paid more than are legally due I don’t think I’d be qualified to become president,” he said. “I’d think people would want me to follow the law and pay only what the tax code requires.”
Romney said that like most Americans, he doesn’t know the exact percentage of his income that went to taxes each year (though one might figure this out once it becomes a major campaign issue). “I’m happy to go back and look but my view is I’ve paid all the taxes required by law,” said Romney. “From time to time I’ve been audited as happens I think to other citizens as well and the accounting firm which prepares my taxes has done a very thorough and complete job pay taxes as legally due.”
Muir jumped on Romney’s offer to look up the figures, asking if he’d be willing to do so for ABC News (and perhaps fax over some of those returns while he has them out). Romney reiterated that he hasn’t looked at the rate he paid each year and added, “I know that I pay a very substantial amount of taxes and every year since the beginning of my career so far as I can recall.” So we’ll take that as a “no” on releasing more information from his returns.
