Taxing
According to tax returns, David Paterson and his wife earned about $270,000 last year -- they gave $150 of that to charity. And it looks like Andrew Cuomo is now the state's wealthiest public official. He made more than $500,000 last year, most of that from investments. Cuomo also donated about 14 grand to charity. Where do Silver and Bruno rank in all this? They won't say.
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Paterson and his wife made $270K and only gave $150 to charity? That is really shameful! They have an awful lot to be grateful for and they ought to be thinking about how they can use their wealth, power, and influence to give back or at least make some tiny corner of the world a better place.
My family makes a MUCH smaller income than that and we give an awful lot more to a wide variety of charities. For comparison, the Paterson's give .05% of their annual income to charity. My family gave about 3% last year and usually gives more than 5%.
If the Paterson's gave $8,000 to charity it would be just under 3% of their income. I think we can all probably name a number of local charities that could do wonders with $8K but if they prefer a church, a national charity, international outreach, etc. that is up to them. But it is time for them to reach into their much-deeper-than-mine pockets and give a little to those significantly less fortunate.
... said Barbara on Apr 15, 2008 at 3:28 PM | link
Take a chill pill Barbara...he probably only claimed 150 in tax deductions for donating to charity. The family might have donated more money but just didn't claim it or possibly donated time (like volunteering) but you can't claim time...that is what the media is basing their claim...
The more shameful thing is that Bruno and Silver spending an entire lifetime in public service in NYS and won't disclose their incomes...um, what are they hiding? And why do people keep re-electing these old bags? Talk about a waste of taxpayers money...those two are the ones that we have a billion dollar deficit...their salaries! Check their W-2's!!
... said Amelia on Apr 15, 2008 at 10:16 PM | link
I'll bet someone $500 that Joe Bruno doesn't disclose his income. And then if I win, I'll give it to charity and will have donated more than 3 times what Paterson and his wife did!
I'm guessing nobody's going to take such a sucker bet anyway.
(I'm not really serious, btw)
Why would they bother to claim $150 in charitable donations if they'd given more? Why not claim none if you're not going to bother claiming more than 150 of the thousands of dollars that you donated to charity?
... said SS on Apr 16, 2008 at 8:16 AM | link
It is absurd to suggest people with an income of $270,000 claimed a donation of $150 but REALLY donated a lot more and just didn't claim it. Charitable donations are tax shields that happen to do the public good.
You may not be able to claim the time for volunteering but you can claim the mileage, in-kind donations, etc. None of that was noted in the original story/posting. It seems fair to assume that two high-level professionals are either capable of preparing their own taxes effectively or are using a professional tax preparer. Either way, they certainly would have claimed the mileage for volunteer work - and at today's rates it would most certainly exceed $150 rather quickly.
... said Barbara on Apr 16, 2008 at 10:51 AM | link