DES MOINES – Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is worth between $190 million and $250 million, his campaign said today after filing a personal financial disclosure statement with the Federal Election Commission. 
 
 That dollar figure would make him the wealthiest candidate in the 2012 White House race, eclipsing President Obama and with his only possible rival being former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, who has yet to release his disclosure form. He is among the heirs to the Huntsman Corp. fortune. 
 
 Romney’s financial disclosure form can be found here. 
 
 Romney’s statement provides the most detailed look yet at the former venture capitalist’s finances during the past four years yet shows his net worth essentially unchanged over that time. 
 
 Although rendered in broad ranges, the release suggests that his income was not hit the same way many Americans experienced the downturn in the economy. Romney has never released his tax returns, and has declined requests to do so this year, which would offer a fuller picture of his fortune. 
 
 Romney, who was criticized earlier this year for saying to a group of voters that he was “unemployed,” earned nearly $114,000 last year for serving on the board at Marriott International. 
 
 In the past year, Romney also received substantial speaking fees, including from some financial firms that he has sought to protect from more government regulations. For those speaking engagements, he was paid anywhere from $11,475 to speak at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif., to $68,000 to speak at the National Franchisee Association in Las Vegas. 
 
 He was also was paid speaking fees by Barclay’s Bank, Goldentree Asset Management, HP Healthcare Services, and Quest Educational Foundation. A Get Motivated Seminar, via satellite link in Boston, yielded $29,750 for Romney. 
 
 “He has occasionally received compensation for speeches and those have been disclosed in accordance with the law,” said Gail Gitcho, the Romney campaign’s communications director. 
 
 Romney’s wife, Ann, also owns horses in California worth between $250,001 and $500,000, according to the forms. 
 
 Ann Romney has frequently promoted the use of horse riding as a therapeutic way of coping with multiple sclerosis, from which she suffers. The horses she owns engage in competitions and earn prizes, according to Gitcho, so they are required to disclose Romney’s share of an limited liability company that owns them. 
 
 The Romneys also have investments in a wide range of areas, including consumer staples like electronics and office supplies, large oil companies, and financial, health care, and telecommunications companies. 
 
 His investments are held in a blind trust, which he created when he became governor of Massachusetts in January 2003. The trustee is Brad Malt, at the Boston office of the law firm Ropes & Gray. 
 
 “They do not control the investment of these assets,” Gitcho said in a statement. “The assets are under the control and overall management of a trustee.” 
 
 The Romneys also have more than $1 million invested in Solamere Founders Fund, which is run by the eldest of their five sons, Tagg, and hold between $250,001 and $500,000 in gold metal. 
 
 Mitt Romney has between $250,001 and $500,000 in Bank of America cash accounts, and he continues to earn millions from a retirement deal with Bain Capital, the venture firm that he started in 1984 and left in 1999. 
 
 Romney also earned between $100,001 and $1 million in profits from his book, “No Apologies.” That money was divided evenly among six charities: Joey Fund, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Sabin Children’s Foundation, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Dana Farber Cancer Institute Jimmy Fund, and Homes for Our Troops. 
 
 In 2010, Mitt Romney donated his book profits to three different charities: Homes for Our Troops, Dana Farber Cancer Institute Jimmy Fund, and Boston Boys & Girls Club. 
 
 The form filed with the FEC today indicated that the Romneys had financial holdings in a range of between $85 million and $264 million. The campaign said a more accurate range was between $190 million and $250 million, but would not provide any further detail. 
 
 Romney so far has not put any of his own money into his presidential campaign, as he did four years ago. 
 
 About half of the holdings four years ago belonged to Mitt Romney, and theoretically could have been liquidated and used for his campaign. The other half belonged to his wife. The campaign yesterday would not say whether the split continues to be about half-and-half. 
 
 All federal candidates are required to file the disclosures within 30 days of declaring their candidates, but they can seek two 45-day extensions, which Romney did. 
 
 That meant Romney’s forms were due on a Friday – typically a day when politicians announce news they don’t want to promote – and when the political class was consumed with the Iowa Straw Poll taking place tomorrow. 
 
 Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com. ||||| Speaking earlier today , Mitt Romney fessed up to the fact that he doesn't want to release his tax returns because he pays an embarassingly low tax rate. But it's pretty well known that many economists and basically all conservatives think investment income should be taxed at a lower rate than labor income. I think the real news Romney made is that he lacks perspective on what constitutes "not very much" income: 
 
 It turns out that Romney "collected more than $360,000 in speaking fees from such companies as Barclay’s Bank and Goldentree Asset Management over a 12-month period ending last year, according to his financial disclosure filing." To put that in perspective, that's over 7.2 times the median household income in the United States. If you earned over $360,000 last year and lived in the richest county in America, you'd be earning about triple the local median household income. You would be, in other words, a rich person even if you didn't have any investment income, hadn't made a fortune in your earlier career, and weren't only a part-time income earner who was mostly focused on his presidential campaign. I think it's lame to criticize politicians for being "out of touch," but it suggests an unfamiliarity with important, policy-relevant, and not-particularly-obscure economic statistics for Romney to characterize this as "not very much" income ||||| TAMPA, Fla./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney bowed to political pressure and gave the public a glimpse inside his personal fortune on Tuesday, releasing U.S. tax returns showing he pays a lower effective tax rate than many top wage-earners. 
 
 Unlike Americans who rely on a paycheck, Romney earns most of his income from investment profits, dividends and interest. The returns for 2010 and estimates for 2011 showed that he will pay a total of $6.2 million in taxes on income of $42.5 million. 
 
 Romney and his wife Ann paid an effective tax rate of 13.9 percent in 2010 and expect to pay a 15.4 percent effective tax rate when they file their returns for 2011. 
 
 Those rates are far below the top income tax rate on wages, which is 35 percent, because the U.S. tax code in recent years has favored investment income over wage income. 
 
 Targeting popular unease with rising U.S. income disparity, President Barack Obama on Tuesday night in his annual State of the Union speech at the Capitol will put efforts to make the tax code fairer at the center of his reelection campaign. 
 
 Obama will renew his appeal for a “Buffett rule” to ensure that the ultra-wealthy pay their “fair share” of taxes. This idea is backed by multibillionaire Warren Buffett. His assistant Debbie Bosanek - whom he says pays a higher tax rate than he does - will sit with First Lady Michelle Obama for the speech. 
 
 One of the wealthiest Americans ever to run for the White House, Romney did not release returns from the years 1984-1999, when he began making his fortune buying and selling companies as a private equity financier with Bain Capital, but those lucrative years did give him a special tax advantage. 
 
 THE CARRIED INTEREST EDGE 
 
 Romney got about $13 million in income over the past two years from “carried interest,” a form of earnings that is available to private equity partners and taxed at the 15-percent investment income tax rate, not the higher wage income rate. 
 
 The “carried interest” provision of the U.S. tax code has repeatedly been targeted for elimination by Democrats who say it is unfair, while the private equity industry defends it. A campaign spokesman said that Romney “has not addressed carried interest specifically in this campaign.” 
 
 The former governor of Massachusetts released his tax returns after a week when his chief Republican presidential nomination rival, former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich, questioned whether Romney was hiding financial information and cast him as out of touch with most Americans. 
 
 For 2011, about 46 percent of Americans will pay no federal individual income taxes, most of them because they are poor, according to the Tax Policy Center, a think tank. 
 
 Counting all U.S. taxpayers, the average tax rate is 11 percent, according to The Tax Foundation, another think tank. 
 
 Effective tax rates vary wildly from person to person due to the maze of deductions, exemptions and credits in the tax code, which has not been thoroughly overhauled in 25 years. 
 
 Romney’s estimated net worth is $190 million to $250 million. “Governor Romney’s investments are reported and taxed in full compliance with U.S. tax laws,” said Romney campaign counsel Ben Ginsberg on a conference call with reporters. 
 
 NEXT ON GOP FIGHT CARD: FLORIDA 
 
 The Republican candidates are fighting for the nomination to face Obama, a Democrat, in the November 6 general election. The next Republican state primary contest will be in Florida on January 31. 
 
 Gingrich scored by attacking Romney’s finances and upset him in the South Carolina primary on Saturday. The release of Romney’s tax returns was meant to blunt Gingrich. But it could further inflame the debate about the tax code and income inequality, as reflected in the Occupy Wall Street protests. 
 
 Romney campaign officials said his tax rate is based mostly on blind trust investment income. Returns for three blind trusts were released. The officials said Romney makes no decisions on how money is invested. 
 
 They said that Romney’s holdings also include amounts in funds based in the Cayman Islands and other overseas entities. 
 
 The first page of the 2010 U.S. 1040 tax return for Mitt Romney and his wife Ann showing a gross adjusted income of $21,646,507.00 is seen in this document released by the Romney campaign January 24, 2012. REUTERS/Handout 
 
 The Cayman holdings and holdings in a Swiss bank account - closed in 2010 after an adviser decided it could be politically embarrassing to Romney - were reported on tax returns and were not vehicles to avoid taxes, the advisers said. 
 
 Brad Malt, who oversees the Romney blind trusts, said on the conference call that Romney’s wife’s trust had a $3 million bank account at UBS AG, the Swiss banking giant. Malt said he closed the bank account in late 2010. 
 
 Malt said that “taxes were all fully paid” on the account, but that “it just wasn’t worth it; I closed the account.” 
 
 The tax returns showed Romney and his wife contributed $7 million to charity over the two years covered, much of it going to the Mormon church. That represents more than 15 percent of the Romneys’ income for those years. 
 
 COUNTDOWN TO CAPITAL GAINS SCRAP 
 
 Romney had capital gains income of $12.5 million for 2010 and an estimated $10.7 million for 2011. 
 
 The capital gains tax rate was slashed to 15 percent in 2003 under President George W. Bush. President Bill Clinton had cut it to 21 percent from the 28 percent level set under President Ronald Reagan, who raised it to match the tax rate on wages. 
 
 The capital gains rate will jump to 20 percent in 2013 if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire, an issue that is sure to prompt an intense political fight later this year. 
 
 Asked why Romney was not releasing tax records for the years in the 1980s and 1990s in which he made his fortune at Bain, Ginsberg said the two years covered by the tax returns should give a broad picture of Romney’s financial situation. 
 
 “We’re not going to get into the game of once you give them something, they demand more,” Ginsberg said. “This is a fulsome release and we’re proud of it.” 
 
 Malt said Romney had not been audited by the Internal Revenue Service in the last 10 years. 
 
 Slideshow (3 Images) 
 
 FUZZY ANSWERS HURT 
 
 The tax issue may have been a factor in Romney’s loss to Gingrich in the South Carolina primary last Saturday. It became a distraction to Romney’s campaign, and Romney’s fuzzy answers on releasing his records aggravated the problem. 
 
 First he said he might release them, or might not. When the questions kept coming, he said he would put them out in April, after his 2011 forms were completed. Only after he was defeated in South Carolina did his aides say he would release them this week. Gingrich has released his returns for 2010, but has not released an estimate for last year, as Romney did. 
 
 Long considered the front-runner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, Romney was staggered by Gingrich’s lopsided win in South Carolina, and is looking to regain enough momentum to defeat Gingrich in Florida.
– Mitt Romney is taking flak for a gaffe 37 times bigger than his bet with Rick Perry. The candidate, while discussing the possibility of releasing his tax returns, mentioned that his income includes "speakers fees from time to time, but not very much." Financial disclosure forms reveal that from February 2010 to February 2011, Romney's "not very much" came to a total of $374,327, the Huffington Post reports. Romney's speaking fees from companies like Goldentree Asset Management add up to 7.2 times the median household income in the US, notes Slate. And the candidate's repeated failures to show a common touch are beginning to cause a major image problem, Romney-watching political scientist Dean Spiliotes tells the Los Angeles Times. "When people look at a president, they want to know: Does this person understand my life and what I'm facing?" Spiliotes says. "People want to know somebody can identify with them in their struggles."