Jim Geraghty:
Bernie Sanders released his 2014 tax return this weekend, revealing that he and his wife took $60,208 in deductions from their taxable income. These deductions are all perfectly legal and permitted under the U.S. tax code, but they present a morally inconvenient, if delicious, irony: The Democratic socialist from Vermont, a man who rages against high earners paying a lower effective tax rate than blue-collar workers, saved himself thousands using many of the tricks that would be banned under his own tax plan.
With all of his itemized deductions, Sanders’s taxable income was significantly lower than it would have been if he had taken the standard deduction. The deductions left Sanders and his wife paying $27,653 in federal income taxes in 2014, on a joint income of $205,271 — an effective federal tax rate of 13.5 percent. If that seems low to you, your instincts are right: According to the Tax Foundation, the average federal income-tax rate for a couple making $200,000 to $500,000 in 2014 was 15.2 percent. The “millionaires and billionaires” that Sanders is so fond of berating payed, on average, just more than twice as much of their income (27.4 percent) in federal taxes as he did.
On the campaign trail, Sanders’s taxation philosophy is simple: If you can pay more, you should; deductions are not a justifiable reason for a wealthy person to pay a lower effective rate than someone who earns less. His web site declares, “We need a progressive tax system in this country which is based on ability to pay. It is not acceptable that corporate CEOs in this country often enjoy an effective tax rate which is lower than their secretaries.”
With such rhetoric, you might think that Sanders would be reluctant to take every deduction he possibly could. Yet he and his wife took these deductions:
- $22,946 on home-mortgage interest
- $14,843 on real-estate taxes
- $9,666 on state and local income taxes
- $8,000 in gifts to charity
- $350 in gifts to charity other than by cash or check
- $4,473 in unreimbursed job expenses, which according to tax law can include fees such as union dues and travel
Keep in mind, Bernie Sanders doesn’t really like people itemizing their deductions to keep their taxes low. Under his tax plan, people making more than $250,000 per year — a bit more than he makes as a senator, but less than the $400,000 he would make as president — would have their itemized deductions limited to 28 percent of their income. The Sanders family’s own 2014 deductions amounted to 29.3 percent of their income.
The Sanders’s single largest deduction was for the interest payments on their home mortgages. The senator isn’t such a fan of that deduction. In a 1997 book and again in his 2015 autobiography, he called for raising nearly $35 billion in new taxes by capping it at the first $300,000 in home-mortgage debt. In a speech on the floor of the House in 1997, he portrayed the deduction as a welfare payment to billionaires: “[Republicans] don’t talk about a housing policy through the home-interest mortgage deduction, which allows billionaires to get checks from the government when they deduct the mortgage from their mansions.”
Your average Bernie supporter can only afford to give him an average of $27 in financial help.
So, I bet it comes as a big surprise for those poor folks that Bernie lives like a king on their dime!
Here’s a menu from his Bernie for President Plane:
Lamb, crab, prawns, onion jam, all the best wines and beers plus a full liquor cabinet.
There’s something about any of those deductions that we’re supposed to be shocked by?
Are we supposed to be shocked by a combined family income figure of $205,271?
Is Sanders a union member? If not, what does it matter that such expenses can be deducted?
Is there something wrong with declaring unreimbursed job expenses you pay out of your own pocket—such as travel?
Your article is bullshit, Jim. Admit it. You’ve looked at Sander’s tax return and drawn a blank. There’s nothing questionable in there.
And, unlike certain republican candidates, his stated tax intentions wouldn’t effectively amount to giving himself a tax cut.
It’s interesting that the right is suddenly worried about Bernie.
@Greg: Good Lord. You liberals never get it, do you?
People like Bernie and Hillary denounce and vilify wealth and its acquisition yet they never miss an opportunity to gather up their “fair share”. Draconian taxes, restrictions and regulation never seem to go into effect until they have theirs.
Sure, compared to Hillary, Bernie’s hypocrisy looks like painful honesty. But, compared to his own rhetoric, he is every bit as hypocritical as Hillary. Not only that, but he has yet to denounce the deplorable actions of his MoveOn/Soros financed supports.
@Nanny G: Can you show me any time a socialist leader lived under the same rules they impose on their subjects?
@Greg: Irony Alert!
The Dem leaders, including Obama, call for businesses to IGNORE LEGAL tax write offs and simply pay more because the gov’t needs the money more than they do and will spend it smarter than they will.
Of course it is untrue.
Businesses are far more frugal than the gov’t.
Just look at the privately funded Trump campaign compared to the PAC funded ones of, say, Jeb Bush.
At the time Bush dropped out he had spent well over 130 million dollars.
During that same time Trump had spent only $25 million.
People sure are generous with Other People’s Money, aren’t they?
@Bill:
LOL!
The old Inuit phrase, ”unless you’re the lead dog the view never changes,” comes to mind.
There is no point in being UNDER socialist rule.
The only good thing about it is LEADING it.
Aren’t the Sanders family’s tax returns entirely normal, compared with those of, say, Donald Trump?
Oh, right. Trump is still “being audited.” Can’t show ’em. So, how about Ted Cruz?
Well, the partial returns thus far show Cruz and his wife had income of more than $5 million for 2011-2014. Other than Ted’s senate salary of $174,000 per year, things are a bit sketchy. So little has been released that the amount of their charitable deductions aren’t even known. His wife, who is an investment manager for Goldman Sachs but currently on unpaid leave, evidently accounts for most of the family income.
The Cruz campaign website paints a rather different picture of what has been released:
If you click on the years linked at the bottom of that page, you’ll find nothing more than the front and back of Form 2040 for each year. Here’s 2011, for example. Evidently definitions of transparency vary considerably.
Attacking Sanders on his disclosure is ridiculous, given that Trump has revealed nothing, and Cruz is only pretending to have done so.
Bernie and Jane Sanders have released not only form 1040, but their attendant schedule forms as well. Their returns are no more complicated than those of any successful middle class family.
Bill and Hillary Clinton’s returns have also been released in their entirety. They’re part of the upper, highly successful class, and the complexity of their tax returns reflect it. That said, they’ve revealed every page. In the case of the linked year, that’s a 44-page return.
If anyone is hiding something, it most certainly isn’t Sanders. If it’s Bill and Hillary Clinton, they’re apparently hiding it in plain view.
Trump and Cruz aren’t actually letting anyone look, and they’re not being truthful about that fact.
@Greg: You don’t get it and, quite possibly, never will.
It’s OK to make money. It’s OK to utilize the tax code. However, when you go about vilifying people who make money and utilize the tax code, then it is revealed you are doing the same thing, it makes you sort of hypocritical and impossible to trust.
So far as I know, everyone living inside the United States having taxable income is presently required by law to use the existing tax code. Generally speaking, taxpayers do that in such a way as not to unnecessarily disadvantage themselves.
Sanders doesn’t have a problem showing voters exactly how that’s working out for him. He’s not embarrassed by it, or ashamed of it. Given what he reveals, we can hypothesize how any changes he proposes might directly affect him.
So, what’s the problem with Cruz and Trump? They aren’t revealing what Sanders reveals. We have no way to gauge the accuracy of their statements. We don’t know how any changes they propose would affect them personally.
If you want to tag Sanders as hypocritical, I guess you’ll have to categorize Cruz and Trump as being totally full of sh-t.
Sanders is probably filing returns exactly as any conscientious middle class taxpayer would, given the same income sources and deduction options. I don’t think attacking him on that basis is going to win much sympathy among thoughtful voters.
@Greg: And Bernie SHOULDN’T worry because good, loyal, card-carrying liberals will excuse, rationalize and blame away his demonstrated hypocrisy the same way they excuse Hillary’s lies and abuses.