Democratic Primaries
In reply to the discussion: In search of Sanders' tax return [View all]SWBTATTReg
(22,399 posts)item. deductions alone you have listed already 56000 already (the state & local taxes, mort. interest, charity, real estate taxes all roughly add up to the $56,377 as shown). Why are you wondering if they are questionable? Are you talking about the sheer size of the amounts? If so, my mort. interest at one time was over $12k a year for my small place, I expect that his place is probably bigger than my place but I can't say for sure. Updated...he has 3 places. Thus, mort. expense is probably in line. As to rental income, I had 3 places but didn't rent them at the time (was going to sell them, didn't want to deal w/ renters, needed to fix up stuff, etc.).
The state and local taxes, yeah, reasonable, if you're making $174K (whatever the amount a senator is making), the real estate taxes, wow, high but I expect that out there on the east coast. Tax prep of $204 is rather low, but could include just copying, postage, and other mundane stuff, which can pile up. I just did 1 round at the post office (certified and return receipt requested for two sets of returns for two people, cost $28 bucks alone, not counting the copying either), and I did other stuff too, in preparing these particular sets of returns, which cost money too.
If he itemized, which I suspect he did, he wouldn't be able to deduct these costs (the tax prep. fee) being that there are limits to what you can deduct (7.5 or 10% medical, and various other %s of AGI for the other categories).
Also, his deductions would have been larger (due to depreciation etc.) if he had rented his place(s) out, depreciation (if not fully depreciated), utilities, insurance, taxes, etc. The figures provided in this post didn't show any so I am assuming BSanders didn't rent out his place nor take any deductions for the place(s).
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden