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**Written by Doug Powers

Over the summer, Harry Reid claimed that a number of people had told him that Mitt Romney didn’t pay any taxes for a decade. By now those “people” have probably since returned to where they came from: deep inside Harry’s imagination, where the cowboy poets recite in harmony and the pomegranate trees cry out for Thorazine. But just in case those “people” are still passing similar information to Senator Reid (and Nancy Pelosi for that matter), this is something he’ll want to completely ignore:

Mitt Romney will release his 2011 tax return this afternoon, showing that he paid an effective rate last year of 14.1%.

Romney and his wife, Ann, paid more than $1.9 million in taxes on about $13.7 million in income, most of which come from investments. The Romneys donated slightly more than $4 million to charity last year, amounting to nearly 30% of their income.

The information comes from Brad Malt, who manages the Romneys’ blind trust. He made the disclosure on a blog post on the Romney campaign website. The documents will be released at 3 p.m. ET.
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His campaign will post a notarized letter from Pricewaterhouse Coopers, showing that Mitt and Ann Romney paid both state and federal income taxes for a 20-year period, starting with 1990 and going through 2009. The Romneys already released their income tax return for 2010.

Malt said in his note posted online that the Romneys paid an average annual effective tax rate of 20.2% during the entire 20-year period. The lowest they paid was 13.66% — which would support Romney’s claim in August that he’s paid at least 13% every year.

In that period, Malt said the Romneys gave an average of 13.45% of their adjusted gross income to charity.

Reid several weeks ago: “Word is out”:

Update: Politico has a charitable giving analysis here.

Also, a revised approach from the left: Romney now pays too much in taxes and leaves too many deductions on the table. As they say, you can’t make this stuff up.

Update II: Reid responds: “He’s hiding something! It is so evident he’s hiding something!”

Now Romney’s “hiding something” just because reality doesn’t conform to the scenario that’s been played out in Harry’s intracranial cuckoo’s nest for the past several weeks?

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe