Josh Barro, Columnist

Mitt Is Overpaying His Taxes – For Now

September 22, 2012 at 1:59 AM UTC

Josh Barro is the lead writer for the Ticker, Bloomberg View's blog on economics, finance and politics. His primary areas of interest include tax and fiscal policy, state and local government, and planning and land use. Previously, Barro was a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and a commercial real estate banker at Wells Fargo. He holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from Harvard and lives in Queens, New York.

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Today, the Romney campaign released a summary of Mitt Romney’s tax returns since 1990 and his 2011 tax return. The most striking part of the announcement is that Romney chose to forego $1.75 million in charitable deductions available to him in 2011 in order to ensure that his tax rate would be at least 13 percent, the estimated level he announced in January.

Foregoing those deductions is an interesting choice for two reasons, and not simply because Mitt is leaving money on the table. The first is that, less than two months ago, Romney argued that overpaying your taxes is a sign of incompetence. He told ABC News: