Romney says he never paid less than 13 percent in taxes

Washington - Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney has said he never paid less than a 13 percent tax rate over the last 10 years.
 
“I did go back and look at my taxes, and over the past 10 years I never paid less than 13 percent,” Romney said, adding: “I think the most recent year is 13.6 or something like that. So I paid taxes every single year”.
 
According to CBS News, Romney has publicly released his 2010 tax return and an estimate of his 2011 return.
 
He has refused to release more of his tax returns, arguing that Democrats will use them to level false charges against him, the report added.
 
According to the report, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that an ‘extremely credible’ source from Bain Capital, the private equity firm Romney founded, told him that Romney avoided paying taxes for ten years.
 
“Harry Reid's charge is totally false,” Romney said, adding: “I'm sure waiting for Harry to put up who it was that told him what he says they told him. But every year I've paid at least 13 percent, and if you add in addition the amount that goes to charity, why, the number gets well above 20 percent”.
 
According to the report, the Obama campaign responded to Romney’s remarks with a challenge.
 
“Mitt Romney today said that he did indeed 'go back and look' at his tax returns and that he never paid less than 13% in taxes in any year over the past decade,” Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith said in a statement.
 
 "Since there is substantial reason to doubt his claims, we have a simple message for him: prove it. Even though he's invested millions in foreign tax havens, offshore shell corporations, and a Swiss bank account, he's still asking the American people to trust him," the report quoted Smith, as saying.