Flashback: Kerry Paid 13% Tax Rate

By Liz Goodwin, The Ticket

Mitt Romney acknowledged yesterday that his tax rate is probably about 15 percent--lower than what many high-income families pay. Romney, whose net worth is estimated to be between $200 and $250 million, pays a lower tax rate because most of his income comes from investments instead of a salary.

How does Romney's effective tax rate compare to the recent presidential nominees from the major parties?

In 2004, John Kerry and his wife released portions of their separate tax returns that showed the couple paid an effective federal tax rate of about 13 percent on $5.5 million in income from the year before. (At first, Kerry only released his own tax return. He later released the first two pages of the tax return of his millionaire wife, Teresa Heinz.) Some conservatives, like Stephen Moore of the Club for Growth, used Kerry's effective tax rate to criticize him for his opposition to a flat tax that would raise his taxes.
 
George and Laura Bush paid about 28 percent of their income in taxes in 2003, though their yearly income was a tenth of the Kerrys' that same year.
 
Vice President Dick Cheney, meanwhile, paid only 20 percent of his $1.3 million income in taxes in 2003.