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Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Your tax quiz of the day

The O's tally of how much of her own money Nurse Amanda is spending to get re-elected to the Portland City Council just got revised from $250,000 to $300,000. Three hundred thousand Simoleons! Man, that ain't hay.

Here's a query for you tax types out there: How much of it will she get to write off on her and her husband's income tax return?

Comments (11)

Deductions: None.

Oregon income tax credit: $50 each, if they file separately; $100, if they file a joint return.

Yep. I put thirty grand into mine. No write off. Talk about buyer's regret!

My hope was to make it into a runoff with Sten and then fundraise to pay myself back. If she's re-elected, Amanda could do a fundraiser to reimburse herself some (or all) of that.

At least she's not likely to demand favors from herself.

Since she is running for re-election she might qualify to deduct expenses associated with job-seeking (because each term is new employment in the same line of work). This would let her write off her business miles (which were likely inkinded to the campaign).

Jobseeking deductions can include resume expenses, but I doubt that tens of thousands worth of campaign literature would be covered.

Fundraising after an election, to pay off a debt, is one of (in my view) the biggest reasons why some version of publicly financed campaigns made/make sense, despite the many negatives.

"Can I buy a vowel?" -- Char-Lie Hales.

At least she's not likely to demand favors from herself.

If I take myself out to dinner, I sometimes try to take advantage of myself afterward.

despite the many negatives.

Like the unconstitutionality.

Sorry, by law I can't give you tax advice, Jack.
But if she is doing it for the children and has Romney's tax team on it, I would imagine she could deduct all of it plus 20 percent.
And the 50 bucks.

Will she have to line up and kiss the "rings" of future bailout donors?

Or can she avoid the obsequiousness by selling tickets to her inaugural ball?

Deductions: None.

I wouldn't be so sure. Can't she say that she's spending the money to maintain her current employment? Could be a deductible business expense -- probably "miscellaneous," though, which spells doom for the deduction under the ghastly alternative minimum tax. It's not clear to me whether she and her husband are in AMT land or not.

Under the regular income tax, "miscellaneous" deductions are subject to a "floor" of 2% of adjusted gross income, but $300,000 would exceed that unless they hit the lottery.




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