Mitt Romney Sent Millions to Mormon Church

The news that Mitt Romney earns most of his income in the form of capital gains is really no surprise. That is one of the attractions of being in a business like Bain Capital. If your corporate restructuring works out well, you can earn millions or tens of millions of dollars and pay a flat 15 percent tax rate on it. (You also avoid the 2.9 percent Medicare tax that would apply if the income were treated as regular compensation.) By all accounts, the Bain deals worked out very well indeed, which is why Governor Romney has been able to spend so much time running for office rather than working for a living.


As part of just one Bain transaction in 2008, involving its investment in Burger King Holdings, filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission reveal that an unnamed Bain partner donated 65,326 shares of Burger King stock to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, holdings then worth nearly $1.9 million. And there were numerous others, giving the church a stake in other Bain properties, such as Domino's Pizza, the electronics manufacturer DDi, the phosphates company Innophos Holdings, and Marquee Holdings, the parent to AMC Theaters.


The Republican presidential candidate's campaign staff confirmed that some of the stock transactions were at Romney's direction, but they would not say which ones.


"Mitt Romney has publicly stated that he regularly tithes to his church," said Andrea Saul, a Romney campaign spokeswoman, when asked about the Bain contributions. "Some of those church contributions have come through the Tyler Foundation. Others have been donations of stock through Bain. Any shares donated by Mitt Romney are personal shares owned by him."


Saul also noted that not all the shares that appear on Bain securities filings can be attributed to Romney, "as there are other Mormon members of the firm who may also have been making donations to the church of personal shares owned by them."


Questions about Romney's faith have remained largely subdued during the 2012 campaign. Many believe he helped tame the issue during his previous campaign with a December 2007 speech at the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, during which he declared that his church would not dictate his actions in the White House, if he was to become President.


"I do not define my candidacy by my religion," Romney said. "A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith."


Romney said that Mormon church authority is limited to the province of church affairs, "and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin.