Romney gave 40% of his 2011 income to charity — and declined to take the full charitable deduction they were entitled to.

Paul Caron reviews the Romneys' newly released tax return.

The Romneys’ generous charitable donations in 2011 would have significantly reduced their tax obligation for the year. The Romneys thus limited their deduction of charitable contributions to conform to the Governor's statement in August, based upon the January estimate of income, that he paid at least 13% in income taxes in each of the last 10 years.

So Romney voluntarily forked over more money to the federal government than he needed to because he didn't want the percentage to look too bad.