Mitt Romney: Richer Than You Think

Source: Mother Jones

Is Mitt Romney richer than he's letting on? It's generally agreed that, if elected in November, Romney would be the wealthiest president in American history, but the extent of his wealth goes well beyond what is normally reported in the press.

According to the Romney campaign's most recent disclosure of his personal finances, he's worth between $190 and $250 million. However, those figures only include financial assets such as stocks, bonds, and cash. Presidential candidates are not required to disclose a variety of other potentially high-value holdings, including family real estate and money in certain trusts and charities. Here are some of the Romney assets that don't show up in typical measures of his wealth:

Houses: +$18 million
Unlike most Americans, Romney keeps only a small portion of his wealth locked up in residential real estate—"small" being a relative term here. In 2008, the Romneys dropped $12 million on a beachfront house in La Jolla, California ($3.3 million more than it's valued for tax purposes). More recently he ordered a $55,000 "Phantom Park" car elevator— item 27 in our "History of Mitt Romney in 30 Objects"—to move their automobiles in and out of the home's 3,600-square-foot basement garage. When in Massachusetts, the Romneys stay in an $895,000 townhouse condo. And come summertime, the family decamps to Wolfreboro, New Hampshire, where their $8 million lakefront compound includes a six-bedroom house, a horse stable with guest apartments over it, and a $630,000 boat house. In 2009, Romney sold a mansion in Belmont, Massachusetts, for $3.5 million and a 9,500-square-foot ski house in Park City, Utah, for around $5 million.

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So what is Romney really worth?
Add together all of the above, and Romney is worth up to $378.3 million, some 50 percent more than the upper bound that typically gets reported.

Read more: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/mitt-romney-tax-returns-net-worth