Mitt Romney May Have Given the Mormon Church $1.9 Million in Burger King Stock

One point of interest if and when Mitt Romney releases his tax returns, will be his ties to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but with news of some recently uncovered Bain transactions, we might not have to wait that long. ABC uncovered new transactions in a report today that shows an unnamed Bain partner donating over 65,000 shares of Burger King in to  the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2008 (worth $1.9 million at the time) along with similar deals between the church and companies Bain was involved with (Dominos, AMC Theaters' parent company to name a few). While an "unnamed Bain partner" who donates to the Mormon church at the time of Romney's tenure doesn't necessarily mean it was Romney, Bain officials confirmed with ABC that Romney did in fact orchestrate some of those deals but declined to name which ones or how many. What ABC hints at, is that these transactions could be part of the Mormon church's "tithing" which involves asking members to give a 10% donation based on income--meaning the $1.9 million wouldn't  be out of scale for a guy whose estimated worth sits around $250 million. The Bain transactions follow the news of Romney's (and his wife's) charity giving the church over $4 million in three installments in 2003, 2008 and 2009--all of which just piques more interest in that April tax return promise.