President Obama Files Return - Taxed Enough Already?

By Karl Klockars in News on Apr 15, 2010 7:00PM

As thousands of Tea Partiers gather at plazas and federal buildings across the country today, the focus of their ire has posted his own tax documentation for all to inspect. President Obama has released his and Michelle's 2009 tax return on The White House website [link to the .pdf here] along with Vice President Biden and his wife Jill's.

The President posted an income of $5.5 million, mostly from book royalties, and paid a tax bill of nearly $1.8 million. In addition, the donation of his $1.5 million Nobel Prize purse to charity is detailed, as well as over $300,000 of other tax-deductible donations. The Bidens only posted incomes of $333,000, so presumably Obama is picking up the tab at Five Guys. This is also in stark contrast to the partial releases of President Bush's 2007 tax returns, where GWB took home just $719,000 and paid $221k. (Presidents get paid $400,000 a year with additional expense accounts for things like travel and entertainment.) In addition, as noted by CBS White House correspondent Mark Knoller, Obama avoided the Alternative Minimum Tax which would have taken even more out of the President's pocket.

Despite overpaying by about $8k, the Obamas forwarded the balance to next year's return. Beyond the number crunching and tax math info for financial geeks, the Obama tax return has to have one the coolest entries for address and especially for the box marked "your occupation:" US PRESIDENT & US FIRST LADY. Oh, and since the boxes with their Social Security numbers are blank, expect a new flurry of "he's obviously not a citizen he's a robot from Martian Kenya and Michelle is a lizardperson like on 'V'" lunacy.