Taxes are often private, uninteresting chores that most Americans dread doing. But since the Richard Nixon administration it is customary for the sitting President to release their tax returns for public scrutiny, and we can actually learn quite a lot of interesting things from them.
Take, for example, Nixon. In 1970, Nixon and his wife made over $200,000 in income, but due to a large amount of deductions paid only $792.81 in taxes. The deductions themselves, while not improper, did raise some eyebrows.
This is the last year that we shall see a tax return from President Barack Obama, and boy, we should be sad to see him go. Many presidential tax returns require a CPA to guide them through the complicated income calculations, capital gains, and deductions that you often see on such returns, but Obama’s is refreshingly simple.
The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center published Barack and Michelle’s tax return on its website along with a very handy guide to tell the average Joe what each part of the infamous 1040 form means. It seems 90 percent of Obama’s total income comes from the presidential salary: $400,000.
Compare that to Richard Nixon’s 1970 tax return, where the majority of his money came from other sources.
In fact, besides the income he received as President of the United States, the only other reported earnings was a small amount earned from the sale of his first two books. The third book’s income all went to charity.
We’re going to miss you, Barack.
And by the way, it is also customary for presidential candidates to release their tax returns when running for the highest office in the land. The Obamas did it in 2008. The Clintons have already released many years of their own tax returns.
Guess who hasn’t? Republican nominee Donald J. Trump.
Watch a video of the President talking about stopping corporations from tax inversion, which is moving a legal entity to another country to avoid paying higher taxes in the United States:
