New: Biden and the first lady paid $146,629 in federal income taxes on a combined $619,976 in adjusted gross income in 2023 — meaning the first family paid an effective federal income tax of 23.7% — according to tax filings released by the White House, @justinsink reports.
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) April 15, 2024
From the Associated Press, “Tax Day reveals a major split in how Joe Biden and Donald Trump would govern”:
Tax Day reveals a major split in how Joe Biden and Donald Trump would govern: The presidential candidates have conflicting ideas about how much to reveal about their own finances and the best ways to boost the economy through tax policy.
Biden, the sitting Democratic president, released his income tax returns on the IRS deadline of Monday. Filing jointly with his wife, Jill, he reported gross income of $619,976 and paid a federal income tax rate of 23.7%…
Biden is proud to say that he was largely without money for much of his decades-long career in public service, unlike Trump, who inherited hundreds of millions of dollars from his father and used his billionaire status to launch a TV show and later a presidential campaign.
“For 36 years, I was listed as the poorest man in Congress,” Biden told donors in California in February. “Not a joke.”
In 2015, Trump declared as part of his candidacy, “I’m really rich.”
The Republican former president has argued that voters have no need to see his tax data and that past financial disclosures are more than sufficient. He maintains that keeping taxes low for the wealthy will supercharge investment and lead to more jobs, while tax hikes would crush an economy still recovering from inflation that hit a four-decade peak in 2022…
The split goes beyond an ideological difference to a very real challenge for whoever triumphs in the November election. At the end of 2025, many of the tax cuts that Trump signed into law in 2017 will expire — setting up an avalanche of choices about how much people across the income spectrum should pay as the national debt is expected to climb to unprecedented levels.
Including interest costs, extending all the tax breaks could add another $3.8 trillion to the national debt through 2033, according to an analysis last year by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
Biden would like to keep the majority of the tax breaks, based on his pledge that no one earning less than $400,000 will have to pay more. But he released a budget proposal this year with tax increases on the wealthy and corporations that would raise $4.9 trillion in revenues and trim forecasted deficits by $3.2 trillion over 10 years…
35 or 40 More Like This, Please!
TBone
She’s mentally taxed.
Habba was roundly roasted by commenters on social media.
https://www.rawstory.com/alina-habba-trump-2667787750/
Nukular Biskits
I normally give AP the benefit of the doubt.
But this is almost bothsiderism.
At least they provide hard verifiable facts.
Old School
I assume Trump’s returns are still being audited.
TBone
@Old School: musta been routed by DeJoy’s office staff.
dm
Jimmy Kimmel has a couple of choice nicknames for Don Snoreleone the other night: “Dozo the Clown” and “Donny Nappleseed”
Old School
prostratedragon
In earlier times, Republican hypocrisy was worth something at tax time, as I think all recent gop Presidents released their tax filings voluntarily. This was an early hint, for those who still needed one, about the guy.
@TBone: If the judge had said nothing, who would have known?
TBone
He’s confessing in public. I mean, again.
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-hush-money-statement/
Brachiator
I appreciate Biden’s transparency and honesty. That he has not made a lot of money during his life and political career is close to the norm for many presidents. From an NBC News story.
A few presidents came from or amassed great wealth. Examples. Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Herbert Hoover.
Trump’s issue is not that he is wealthy. It’s that he’s an asshole.
Dan B
@TBone: My favorite part of the Habba whine is she blames the venue choices. Honey, that’s where the crimes occurred.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, …
(Insert This_is_fine.jpg here.)
(via nycsouthpaw)
Cheers,
Scott.
eclare
@Dan B:
One of the comments in the article: how strange that the Manhattan DA didn’t bring the case in Oklahoma.
Baud
@Another Scott:
I think I read Dubai used cloud seeding.
smith
@Nukular Biskits: If they really wanted to present the full picture they would have mentioned this:
gwangung
@Brachiator: I don’t begrudge politicians who use their public service life to get rich later. It’s ridiculously easy to do that legally and ethically. People almost shove their money in ex-President’s hands.
The orange one is both greedy and wasteful, in that he couldn’t wait until he was out of office to start raking in the loot, and that he couldn’t balance his books.
HumboldtBlue
DougJ out here hitting dingers!
WaterGirl
@HumboldtBlue: Whoa! DougJ after Dark!
Another Scott
@Baud: That was a comment in that thread.
And there’s something to it. E.g. AlArabiya.net (from January 18):
(Much, much more at the link.)
Seeding only works if there’s moisture in the air already (it doesn’t create clouds – it encourages water in the clouds to condense), so that much rain means that the clouds were highly unusual…
(Freaky weather happens somewhere on Earth not-infrequently. But climate change means that not-infrequent events are even more common.)
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
lowtechcyclist
If investment was going to be supercharged by low taxes on the rich, it would have already happened. But if there’s far more money available than is needed to make all the good investments, then it’s time to raise tax rates on the rich, and that’s where we are.
There’s already far more money in the hands of the rich than can be put to productive use through investment. That’s been true for decades now. That was part of the story of the crash of 2007-8, and it’s part of what’s going on with residential real estate now.
There needs to be a balance between money available for investment, and money that people would like to spend on consumer goods and services. The latter creates the demand that generates the need for more investment. If there’s a lot of excess money at the top, then it just drives up the prices of everything from stocks to paintings by artists you’ve heard of to property in the places where rich people like to hang out. And also creates weird investment schemes that distort the economy. We could use fewer of those. Higher taxes on the rich would help.
dmsilev
@TBone: Apparently “I can fake being smart” isn’t working quite as well for her as she’d like.
Jim Appleton
@WaterGirl:
Boebert knows her Johnsons …
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist: Co-sign. I will also note that we should think of residential housing more like public works in some critical ways. I would love to see some incentives for cities/municipalities that add substantial numbers of new units relative to their growth predictions and replace older properties.
Gvg
@lowtechcyclist: Yes, we were taught that in Business school. The quality of the investments to choose from goes down when there is too much money chasing investments.
Our society is taught the way to retire or get wealthy etc is to invest. We don’t emphasize that there are good investments and poor ones, and you don’t have to put your money in a poor one. You are better off saving it than throwing it away on silly cons.
if you save, you will have funds when a good one comes along.
HumboldtBlue
Hannah Waddington is not one to fuck with.
Brachiator
@gwangung:
A quiet tradition has developed to make sure that presidents can live in dignity after they retire. Some presidents going back to Madison made financial blunders and had to be rescued by friends and political allies. Grant was made comfortable by the publication of his memoirs.
But with some presidents, notably Nixon and Reagan, it was often like they were being rewarded for past service in passing laws to help plutocrats. Also, former US presidents and UK prime ministers seem to earn big fees on speakers tours. I think that they are all overpaid here, but it is relatively honest.
I hate Trump. He clearly broke all rules related to conflicts of interest and continued to run his businesses while president. I also believe that he may have passed along some national security material to Putin and other foreign interests. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he made some secret deals with China while pretending to treat the Chinese government as an enemy.
Martin
@Gvg: You’re trying to tell us the trillions of dollars stashed in negative yield municipal bonds is somehow a sign that we have too much concentrated wealth?
TBone
@Brachiator: “Russia and China, if you’re listening…”
Firing squad shoulda been called.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@lowtechcyclist:
Just more neoliberal, Reaganomic bullshit that’s been disproved over the last 40 years but still peddled by the right and unfortunately, a lot of Dems.
Matt McIrvin
@Brachiator: That stupid hotel he was running in the Old Post Office building was so clearly a bribery channel, it was disgusting.
Jackie
@TBone: 😂 I saw that, and just the headline almost made me spew water.
So much for her faking that she has a brain 🙄🤦🏼♀️
geg6
@Suzanne:
I read a story recently about a developer, I’m pretty sure it’s a woman, who is having success in creating housing in old malls, especially strip malls. And I thought of you and what your take on it might be. Is that really feasible?
Jackie
@dmsilev:
She can’t even fake faking, I’ll bet🤭
Parfigliano
How could you trust Trumps tax return seeing how Melania works a profession that is paid in cash
WaterGirl
@Jim Appleton: It would seem so!
Brachiator
The president’s and vice president’s tax returns can be downloaded from the White House website.
I had honestly forgotten that the Bidens are old enough to receive Social Security, which is shown on their returns. Otherwise, the president’s tax returns are so straightforward that the Republicans are clearly smoking crack if they believe that the president is some corrupt criminal mastermind.
I would like for pundits and the Fox News crowd to ask why Trump can’t be so transparent.
Another Scott
I filed our taxes online (FreeFileFillableForms) around 1 AM Monday. It was accepted about 30 minutes later. I just checked and the IRS grabbed our payment out of our checking account today.
Pretty efficient!
Cheers,
Scott.
Jay
@geg6:
It’s possible in a strip mall, if:
every shop has it’s own staff washroom and customer washroom.
Water and sewage are key needs in a conversion, then comes electrical supply, which a small mall shop should have more than enough of,
but, the parking lot will often be a large waste of space, and it is rare that the building envelope will handle more than one story.
Ironcity
@Parfigliano: Hey now. When my daughter sells Girl Scout cookies she prefers cash too because if a check bounces the troop has to eat (so to speak) the loss. Though it seems like it’s been going on for eons Girl Scout cookies are early 20th century, I think.
Sure Lurkalot
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Trickle down is a Zombie that seemingly never dies. So called job creators love bubbles and especially bursting them so they can scoop up the spoils and start the grift cycle anew.
We need not totally demonize excessive wealth and the excessively wealthy but it might be helpful if we didn’t idolize them.
Redshift
Wut?
I mean, I appreciate they made it fairly clear that extending the Trump tax cuts would explode the deficit, but the national debt growing is ordinary, not “unprecedented.”
Old School
@geg6:
It was on LGM today.
Here’s the article.
Brachiator
@Ironcity:
Some girl scouts got scammed by people buying stacks of cookies and paying with bogus hundred dollar bills.
So the lesson is don’t take anything bigger than 20s, and maybe even then check that the bills are good.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … VirginiaMercury.com:
This stuff is complicated, in part because of the regulations. But laws to promote domestic production are needed to prevent a race to the bottom and brittle supply chains…
Dominion has had to be dragged kicking and screaming for decades to do much of anything on renewables. They’re finally starting to move. Next is to get them to quit fighting residential solar so much…
Cheers,
Scott.
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
I’d never looked at it that way, but that would make a lot of sense. Especially after the past 15 years or so, we’ve learned that whether or not we can trust the market to build the kinds of residences people want, it’s failed to produce enough of them, as you’ve been frequently pointing out here.
At a fundamental level, this is why we have a public sector: because there are many things that the market either doesn’t do very well, or doesn’t do at all. So since this has become something that the market hasn’t done very well, why not bring the public sector in? But you’re right, there would have to be some good incentives in order to get cities involved in this.
I’ve got more thoughts about this kicking through my head, but I’m running out of energy for the night. But this would be a good conversation to pick up some other time.
Martin
@Jay: In my area, and I think this is probably true almost everywhere, the land value so dominates the value of the property that you just tear the thing down. We’ve been replacing strip malls with mixed use – usually 4 over 1 housing over retail.
They’re beneficial but not connected like older mixed use development where the owner of the first story business owned the sliver of land and lived above it. That’s a much more stable relationship, but strips the city of control over what the business is, and somewhat lowers the density because you can fit 4 families above it instead of just one or two (if there’s a rental by the land owner). So this thing that would be a good low-end property because a small business owner could essentially subsidize their housing costs by using the business, and more so if they rented out the floor immediately above the business and lived above that is now just a random retail property owner playing god with the mix of businesses in their strip of retail and doing rentals as a completely different endeavor above that. The financial benefits don’t flow to the small business owner but to the corporate property owner/manager. It removes that as a pathway to the middle class and usually results in a bunch of franchise/chains rather than local businesses.
Same for the mall tear-downs which at least lean more heavily into walkable communities and reduce traffic in the local area. But it doesn’t change the economic relationship in the community.
HumboldtBlue
@eclare:
Frannie’s got a new friend.
Martin
@lowtechcyclist: Two other trends (besides the one I mention above with business/residential shared property) need to develop.
wjca
Because he has such a great record of honesty in his financial statements. /s
Suzanne
@geg6: In general, converting old mall buildings to residential doesn’t really work too often. Usually it’s better financially and architecturally to demolish the old building and build a new one on the site. Residences need lots of windows and most mall buildings have too much interior square footage. And there’s traffic problems, and zoning problems, etc etc etc.
There’s been some great adaptive reuse projects around the country of strip retail. Spawn the Elder went to (Montessori) kindergarten and first grade in a school that was located in a converted strip retail building. Each classroom was one of the former stores, so they were huge in comparison to typical elementary classrooms.
Suzanne
@Jay: @Martin: Yeah, it’s not a typical adaptive reuse, because it probably costs a lot relative to what it returns. Strip retail buildings are also usually crappy construction and not worth saving. So can it be done? Sure. Will it be done? Probably not with much frequency. The land is worth a lot, the building isn’t, and scraping the site lets you use the land more efficiently.
I consulted once for a client who was looking at buying a strip retail building to convert into medical office. It was built in the 70s, and the building was in such poor condition that I could tell within an hour that it would not pencil out. Correcting the problems plus all the upgrades it would need, and then the interior fit-out…. the cost would be too high and there wouldn’t be enough capacity to create enough revenue to pay it back. Nevertheless, we did the math and prepared the whole report…. it did not pencil out. LOL.
eclare
@HumboldtBlue:
Sweet!
Jay
@Martin:
All through out BC there is a housing shortage.
We live in Burquitlam in a 25 story condo/apartment tower. It occupies space that used to be a gas station and a Safeway store, along with a Safeway store, another 25 story tower a 4 3 story garden condo’s. There are 8 other towers ranging from 25 stories to 50 stories and 6 more going up, one will be 75 stories. This in an area that 10 years ago, had nothing taller than 3 stories and was 90% single family homes. Right next to our tower complex is Burquitlam Mall, a single story strip mall. It is going to be redeveloped into 3 towers, (mixed use/condo’s/rentals) and a park space.
On the other hand, in Merritt, there are 3 empty small strip malls. 10 years ago, it would have made sense to bulldoze them and put up retirement condo’s and rental apartments. However, between the floods, forest fires, all the mills closing, industry leaving and Merritt becoming pretty much a Gas and Grub Hub, it makes sense to turn those strip malls into affordable housing, If they can be), which there is a shortage of, because the Gas and Grub employee’s can’t afford a 3bdr condo with 2 vehicles and a boat storage. All the old 50’s and 60’s Motels are now affordable housing, mostly under the Ministry, except for 2, one was flooded out, the other is still family owned and a nice setting.
Unhoused encampments exist in every town and city in BC. Empty buildings exist in every town and city in BC.
There was a 350 seat restaurant in Prince George that closed down in the early 90’s with the Mill closures. The Owners tried many times to sell the building for land value, no takers, at the same time trying to get permission to turn it into low income housing, but the City refused.
Instead, it turned into a squat, housing up to 40 people at a time. Last year, one of the squatters decided to strip the copper the squatters wern’t using, (the gas lines), the building burned down, 2 people died. Yes, gas, electricity and water were still on because if they had been turned off, the building would have rotted in 2 winters.
There was a Health Food store in Burquitlam Plaza, that Covid killed. It’s been empty for 3 years now. Nobody will lease the space, because it will be torn down soon, (two years). There is another space empty, used to be a bank, (2 years), and another empty space, ( 1 year) that last was a Condo Tower demonstration/sales office.
Meanwhile, less than a block away, there is an unhoused encampment under the Skytrain tracks that the City of Coquitlam spends over $100K a month clearing, up to 60 people at times, that pops back up a week later.
Suzanne
@Jay: Retail typically rents for more per square foot than residential, so an owner isn’t likely to want to make that conversion unless there is some other factor at play (like density). Which is why old crappy retail buildings are replaced with new crappy retail buildings all the time.
The project I just finished is going to be built on a former mall site. The main mall building was demolished, though, and the site is being entirely redeveloped. The only structure that they’re keeping is the parking garage.
A big dead mall (I think it’s named Century 3 or something) is being demolished this week in one of the PGH suburbs. The mall I used to hang out in my teen years in Mesa (Fiesta) was demolished last year. Multiple developers tried to make something of it, but those big mall buildings and those oceans of parking around them just do not convert well.
Jay
@Suzanne:
Here, everything on the inside, is leaseholder “improvements”, For the costs of clearing the homeless encampment, the City of Coquitlam could have leased the spaces, have put up short term low income housing, ranging from a shelter space, to SRO’s, to micro apartments, instead they spent $3.6 million over the three years to push the unhoused away for 1 week per month, and will continue to do so.
When T and I were unhoused, we looked at some run down retail spaces, ( a tiny strip mall in New Westminster for example).
Zoning would not have allowed us to live there, we would have had to fake a business and used stealth to occupy. But, I have skills, tools, we had a vehicle. 1500sq feet, toilet and sink. Space to add a bath and shower, 220V and 115V power with 150amp service. Single pane windows that could be insulated with argon, bubble pack, caulk and plexi.
$1500 a month + power.
People started figuring out how to rent with Covid, so instead, we are in a 750 sq ft apartment at $1830 a month, but I didn’t have to build a proper bathroom and kitchen, or paint, or soundproof, or insulate.
Like I said, all across BC we have unhoused people and empty buildings, most of which, outside the GVRD and Victoria/Sannich, will never be rented or redeveloped. One of the Malls in Merritt is listed for sale, and has been for 3 years, for $450K. Demo is estimated to cost $550K. Allowed density will allow 5 $120k Condo’s.
brantl
@Parfigliano: That should be a t-shirt. With a blacked-out picture of her in her birthday suit.