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WASHINGTON (AP) - Cindy McCain, who two weeks ago said she would never make her tax returns public, revealed Friday that she had a total income of more than $6 million in 2006. The presidential campaign of her husband, Republican John McCain, released the top two summary pages of her 2006 tax return, eager to avoid making her earlier refusal an issue in the contest. The documents show that Mrs. McCain, who files her taxes separately from her husband, paid more than $1.7 million in federal income taxes—a tax rate of more than 28 percent. She reported nearly $570,000 in...

ABC News' Justin Rood and Avni Patel report: After GOP Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign spent the past several days dumping a series of lobbyists with conflict-of-interest issues, rejecting endorsements from two controversial evangelists and releasing the 71-year-old candidate's medical records, what could be left to jettison? A small portion of his wealthy wife's IRS returns, apparently. As millions of Americans switched off the news this afternoon and hit the road for the Memorial Day weekend, the McCain campaign released the first two pages of his wealthy wife's 2006 IRS filing. The pages summarize the would-be first lady's finances for...

Today, the Washington Post editorial board urged Cindy McCain to release her tax returns, repeating a call made four years earlier to Teresa Heinz Kerry. But the timing seemed coincidental, given that Media Matters just wrote a letter to Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt last Friday. In that letter, the organization brought up the Heinz Kerry editorial from 2004, and asked why a similar request was not made to McCain. Hiatt tells Politico that the letter wasn't the reason for publishing Wednesday's editorial. "The editorial actually had been drafted before the [group's effort] began, or at least before I...

WASHINGTON - Cindy McCain says she will never make her tax returns public even if her husband wins the White House and she becomes the first lady. "You know, my husband and I have been married 28 years and we have filed separate tax returns for 28 years. This is a privacy issue. My husband is the candidate," Cindy McCain, wife of Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting John McCain, said in an interview aired on NBC's "Today" on Thursday. Asked if she would release her tax returns if she was first lady, Cindy McCain said: "No." The Arizona senator released his tax...

He was a character created by Actor Garrett Morris on the “Saturday Night Live” TV show, back in the 1970’s. Morris became famous for uttering these simple words in broken-English, with a Spanish-sounding accent: “Beisbol …been bery bery good to me …” “Chico” was a fictitious professional baseball player from the Dominican Republic. He barely spoke English, but loved the fact that he was able to leave his impoverished homeland and come to the United States, where he was paid quite handsomely to play ball. And each time “Weekend Update” Anchor Jane Curtain would introduce Chico on the news set...

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Bill Clinton released tax data Friday showing they earned $109 million over the last eight years, an ascent into the uppermost tier of American taxpayers that seemed unimaginable in 2001, when they left the White House with little money and facing millions in legal bills. The bulk of their wealth has come from speaking and book-writing, which together account for almost $92 million, including a $15 million advance — larger than previously thought — from Mr. Clinton’s 2004 autobiography, “My Life.” The former president’s vigorous lecture schedule, where his speeches command upwards of...

On yesterday's Hardball, Chris Matthews, smelling a rat, was livid when he learned that the Clintons had failed to file or release their 2007 tax return. But on today's Good Morning America, Kate Snow managed to make a silk purse out of the sow's ear of the Clinton's delay. Far from depicting it as a means to evade the promulgation of inconvenient facts, Snow painted the procrastination as proof of the Clintons' humanity. Compare and contrast . . . HARDBALL APRIL 4TH DAVID SHUSTER: As far as the details we do not have the details from last year. We don't...

Clintons Made Nearly $109M Since 2000 By JIM KUHNHENN and DEVLIN BARRETT Saturday, April 5, 2008 Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Clinton made nearly $109 million since they left the White House, capitalizing on the world's interest in the former first couple and lucrative business ventures. The Clintons reported $20.4 million in income for 2007 as they gave the public the most detailed look at their finances in eight years. Almost half the former first couple's money came from Bill Clinton's speeches. "I have absolutely nothing against rich people," Hillary Clinton told North Dakota Democrats at their party...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Clinton report nearly $109.2 million in income for seven years in newly released tax data. The Democratic presidential candidate and her husband paid $33.8 million in taxes from 2000 through 2007. They listed $10.25 million in charitable contributions during that period. Clinton has been under pressure to release her tax returns, especially from rival Barack Obama, who posted his 2000 to 2006 returns on his campaign Web site last week. Neither Obama nor Republican Sen. John McCain have made their 2007 tax returns public, though both say they will this...

The Clinton Tax Returns: What Will They Reveal? An ABC News Review Has Found the Clintons Have Made More Than $50 Million Since Leaving the White House By BRIAN ROSS and AVNI PATEL April 3, 2008— Hillary Clinton has been pulling out all the stops to win the Democratic nomination for president -- but one: she still has not released her family's tax returns. The campaign says they will release the documents sometime before April 15. Without them, many questions remain about how the Clintons made tens of millions of dollars -- and whether they used arcane tax loopholes available...

Clinton aide Howard Wolfson suggested that Hillary's tax returns will be out today or tomorrow: "She said late last week that they would be out within a week and so you can count on that," he said. Wolfson also said Clinton's fundraising totals would be out when the filings are due, around April 20.

The gloves will come off, Barack Obama has promised his supporters, and it looks like he may have already taken his first swing at negative politicking. Calling Hillary Clinton one of the most secretive politicians in America, the Obama campaign publicly demanded that Hillary release her tax returns. Team Hillary responded with a Rezko question: Barack Obama’s campaign took fresh aim at Hillary Clinton Wednesday for refusing to release her tax returns, asking in a memo circulated to reporters, “What does Clinton have to hide?”“In the face of her unwillingness to release her tax returns, Hillary Clinton has made the...

Hillary Clinton is said to be releasing her tax returns on April 15. According to ABC News, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is said to be releasing her tax returns “on or around April 15,” according to an announcement Sunday by her communications director Howard Wolfson. When asked why the New York Senator has not yet released her tax returns when all the other presidential candidates have, Wolfson responded, "The tax returns are going to be released around tax time." Clinton continues to campaign in Ohio Sunday, with the message to voters that the future president should be about solutions, not...

IRS: File your tax return or no stimulus check Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:56pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans eligible for tax rebates of $300 to $1,200 under the new fiscal stimulus act will not receive their payments until they file a 2007 income tax return, even if they make too little to owe any taxes, the Internal Revenue Service said on Wednesday. The tax returns will be used to determine eligibility for the rebate payments, said IRS acting commissioner Linda Stiff. Stiff said the IRS anticipates that some 10 million to 20 million additional returns will be filed by...

Resisting calls from Barack Obama to release her income tax returns, Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday she would only do so if she secures the Democratic presidential nomination and contended her rival had been less than candid about his relationship with major campaign contributors. In a televised interview Monday with Politico.com and local television station WJLA, Sen. Clinton said her financial holdings had been disclosed in her Senate ethics filings and that she had liquidated all her assets when she became a presidential candidate so her investments would not present a conflict of interest. After the former first lady acknowledged...

NEW ORLEANS - Democrat Barack Obama suggested Thursday that Hillary Rodham Clinton follow his lead and release her and her husband's income tax returns so the public can see where the $5 million she loaned her presidential campaign came from. A day earlier, Clinton acknowledged that she had made the loan late last month. At the time, Obama was raising and spending more money than her heading into the round of presidential primaries and caucuses on Super Tuesday. Asked whether he would call on the Clintons to release their tax returns, Obama stopped short of saying they should. "I'll just...

After relentless pressure from rival candidates for attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo released 14 years of personal tax returns yesterday that showed substantial gains in his income in the recent past. During this year's campaign, some of Mr. Cuomo's rivals have called on him to release a list of his law clients in addition to his tax returns. But his campaign said yesterday that Mr. Cuomo, who was a housing secretary in President Clinton's administration, had not practiced law in recent years, and therefore had no clients. The tax records show that Mr. Cuomo's earnings jumped significantly in the tax...

WASHINGTON: US Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife earned 8.82 million dollars last year, some 12 times the amount President George W. Bush made, the White House said Friday. But the Cheneys donated 6.9 million dollars of their income to charity, cutting their net income to a more manageable 1.96 million dollars - meaning that they will get a tax refund of 1.9 million dollars. The president and his wife Laura Bush reported a net income, after charitable donations and other deductions, of 618,694 dollars for 2005, of which 400,000 came from his White House salary. Their income was...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger released three years of tax returns Friday, showing that the actor turned politician is now making more money in investments than he is through his movie company. Schwarzenegger reported earning a $4.2 million salary in 2004, largely from film revenue, which was a significant drop from the $18 million he made in 2002 when he starred in Terminator 3. But in his first full year as governor, Schwarzenegger accumulated most of his income through capital gains, according to copies of tax returns that his investment firm allowed reporters to read but not copy. Schwarzenegger's tax returns showed...

In one of the largest sums ever donated to charity by a U.S. public official, Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne gave away nearly $7 million last year to help the poor and to medical research. According to income tax information released by the White House on Friday, the Cheneys' adjusted gross income in 2005 was $8,819,006. The sum was largely the result of Mr. Cheney's stock options from Halliburton and royalties from three books written by Mrs. Cheney. The Cheneys gave more than three-quarters of their income - $6,869,655 - to several charities, including George Washington University's...

Matt forgot to mention that the Cheney's gave $6.87 million to charity, and he forgot to mention that the only reason the Cheney's are getting a tax refund is that they way overpaid their withholding and/or estimated taxes. It appears that Matt is now a charter member of the Drive-By-Media.

Tax resisters say refusal to pay all or part of their taxes is an act of civil disobedience. The IRS and US courts say it's illegal. When Ruth Benn of Brooklyn filed her federal income taxes this week, she left out an important element: the check. "In good conscience I cannot pay this money to the US government," Ms. Benn wrote in a letter to the IRS that accompanied a completed, but unpaid, 1040 form. "I do not want my tax dollars to be used for killing and war." Benn joins an estimated 10,000 Americans refusing to pay their federal...

That expense in time and money is as much a part of the tax burden on Americans as the check that goes to the federal government. And unlike the tax payment, this part of the tax burden doesn't generate any revenue for the government, though part of it goes into H&R Block's pocket. It is, in the words of the economists, pure deadweight loss. Which is why the I.R.S. should eliminate it. With a small adjustment in processing procedures, the revenue service could send you a tax form already filled out with the information it has for you — a...

New rules for donating that old car, tax breaks for hurricane victims and people who helped them, and bigger incentives to save for retirement are among changes Americans will see this tax-filing season. Other new wrinkles include: High gasoline prices lifted the standard mileage rate allowed for business use of vehicles. And a new definition of "qualifying child" affects tax benefits for certain filers -- the technical details of which might make your eyes glaze over. But if the fine print is too much to take, take heart: This year, the Internal Revenue Service has made it easier to procrastinate....

A three-judge panel overseeing Independent Counsel David Barrett's investigation into abuses by the Internal Revenue Service under the Clinton administration has ordered Barrett to make "discrete deletions" is the draft he submitted 15 months ago. The deletion order "has stoked speculation that [it] has more to do with the next presidential campaign," reports the Wall Street Journal, noting widespread rumors that "the draft report contains information potentially embarrassing to another Clinton administration figure, former first lady and current New York Sen. Hillary Clinton." "The one Clinton official rumored to be implicated in the report is former IRS Commissioner Margaret Richardson,...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - State Controller Steve Westly, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate, called Thursday for his potential rivals in next year's election to release 10 years worth of tax returns. He said voters deserve at least that much disclosure. Westly made millions as a top executive and shareholder in the online auction house eBay. He told reporters during a news conference that he released 10 years of tax records months ago, while Treasurer Phil Angelides, also running for the Democratic nomination, has not. Westly also noted that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has not released tax records to the same extent. Westly's records...

PALO ALTO — State Controller Steve Westly released a decade of his tax returns Monday, showing the former EBay executive received nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in income during the 10 years, mostly from selling stock in the online auction house. Westly's release of tax returns is designed in part to pressure Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Treasurer Phil Angelides to do the same. Westly is facing Angelides in the June 2006 Democratic primary for governor, and Schwarzenegger, a Republican, announced last week that he would seek reelection. Anyone who runs for governor needs to be open and...

WASHINGTON - A Republican House aide was the prime mover behind a provision letting more lawmakers look at Americans' income tax returns, a spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee said Friday. That aide is Rich Efford, who heads the GOP staff of the panel's subcommittee that controls the Internal Revenue Service (news - web sites)'s budget, said committee spokesman John Scofield. The provision lets leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations committees sign letters letting other people see tax returns while visiting IRS facilities. Currently, only top lawmakers on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee...

GUEST OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Los Angeles Say that an I.R.S. agent leaks a politician's income tax return to a newspaper reporter, an act that is a federal felony. The newspaper may have a First Amendment right to publish the information, especially since it bears on a matter of public interest. The government, meanwhile, is entitled to punish the agent, to protect citizens' privacy and ensure a fair and efficient tax system. To punish the agent, prosecutors may need to get the leaker's name from the reporter; but if the reporter refuses to testify because of a "journalist's privilege" to protect confidential...

Spending Bill Held Up by Tax ProvisionSurprise in Measure Spurs Criticism of Legislative Process A $388 billion government-wide spending bill, passed by Congress on Saturday, was stranded on Capitol Hill yesterday, its trip to the White House on hold as embarrassed Republicans prepared to repeal a provision that could give the Appropriations committees the right to examine the tax returns of Americans. Top GOP lawmakers disavowed the provision, expressed surprise that it was in the bill, and blamed both the Internal Revenue Service and congressional staffs for incorporating it into the omnibus spending package funding domestic departments in 2005. But...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 - Democratic leaders and senators from both parties expressed outrage on Sunday about an obscure provision in the huge end-of-session spending bill that would allow the chairmen of the Appropriations Committees and their staff assistants to examine Americans' income tax returns. Republican leaders said that their motives had been misread and that there was never any intention to invade the privacy of taxpayers. They promised that the provision would be deleted from the bill in a special session on Wednesday before the spending measure, which cleared Congress on Saturday night, was sent to President Bush for his...

WASHINGTON -- Legislation that would let top congressional appropriators examine Americans' income tax returns caused delay Saturday in final enactment of a huge $388 billion domestic spending bill. The House and Senate finally approved the spending measure, which will boost NASA funding to more than $16 billion, but not before Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, who were outraged about the income tax provision, attached a resolution to negate it. The provision was inserted in the bill by House negotiators, and the House had earlier passed it 344-51. The Senate finally passed the bill 65-30 but will not send it...

FLASH: Rep. Istook, R-Okla. was responsible for the insertion of the provision... Developing... -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Sunday that "accountability will be carried out" against whoever slipped a provision into an omnibus spending bill that would have allowed two committee chairmen to view the tax returns of any American.

Senate leaders vow author will be held accountable WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Sunday that "accountability will be carried out" against whoever slipped a provision into an omnibus spending bill that would have allowed two committee chairman to view the tax returns of any American. The language was caught and removed in the Senate on Saturday, but the House will have to approve the fix before the spending bill can be sent to the White House for President Bush's signature. "I have no earthly idea how it got in there," Frist said on CBS's "Face The...

Congress debated legislation Saturday giving two committee chairman and their assistants access to income tax returns without regard to privacy protections, but not before red-faced Republicans said it was all a mistake and would be swiftly repealed. "This is a serious situation," said Senate Appropriations Committee chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. He said he was unaware of the provision, inserted into a 3,300-page spending bill covering most federal agencies and programs. Questioned sharply by fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, Stevens pleaded with the Senate to approve the overall spending bill. Stevens promised a resolution repealing that provision relating to tax...

Apparently one of the appropriations bills the Senate is about to vote on contained a provision that allowed congressional staffers access to individuals and corporations tax returns to which they could do whatever they wish with (e.g., share with the press, post on the internet). And it appears not one Senator was aware of this. LOL! It's just fun watching McCain, ect. go balistic over this.

Another interesting fact: Both George Bush and John Kerry are wealthy men. Bush owns only one home, his ranch in Texas. Kerry owns four mansions, all worth several million dollars. (His ski resort home in Idaho is an old barn brought over from Europe in pieces. Not your average A-frame.) Bush paid $250,000 in taxes this year; Kerry paid $90,000. Does that sound right? The man who wants to raise your taxes obviously has figured out a way to avoid paying his own.

Heinz Kerry Hiding $45 Million in Income, Paid Just 1.2% in Taxes Teresa Heinz Kerry earns approximately $50 million in annual income, ten times what she revealed on tax forms released late Friday, according to the New York Times. The staggering sum generated a mere 1.2 percent federal income tax liability, unless Heinz Kerry paid additional federal taxes not shown on the forms released Friday. The average middle class American family pays 20 percent of their income in taxes, a rate 16 times higher than the would-be first family. Noting that the Kerry campaign has not challenged an estimate earlier...

....Heinz Kerry reported almost no ordinary wages last year. Her self-employment pay and a pension payment of $35,448 total less than $60,000, the return shows. "She's got less than $60,000 subject to the rates normal people pay," said Joseph B. Darby III, a partner in the tax practice at the Boston law firm Greenberg Traurig, who reviewed the tax return yesterday. Darby said Heinz Kerry's taxes reflected a common investment approach for wealthy people. Her assets are roughly split between low-yielding, tax-free bonds and dividend-paying stocks. Heinz Kerry gained most of her fortune in an inheritance from her former husband,...

Kerry's Wife Releases Part of Her 2003 Income Tax ReturnBy DAVID CAY JOHNSTON and ERIC LIPTONPublished: October 16, 2004 ASHINGTON, Oct. 15 - Teresa Heinz Kerry reported income of just over $5 million last year, slightly more than half of it from investments in tax-exempt municipal and state bonds, her 2003 income tax return shows, confirming her status as the wealthiest spouse of any major party nominee in United States history.Ms. Heinz Kerry on Friday released a small part of her 2003 income tax return, unlike her husband, Senator John Kerry, and President Bush and his wife, Laura, who have...

Where are they? It's October 15th. She was supposed to release them. Why is no one talking about this?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Christine Iverson(202) 863-8614 WASHINGTON -- RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie issued the following statement today on the promised release of Teresa Heinz Kerry's tax returns: "Throughout history, presidential candidates have disclosed income tax information prior to Election Day. We believe Americans value disclosure and transparency in campaigns. During the 2003 filing year, Sen. Kerry made a $6 million loan to his campaign based on the value of a home jointly owned with his wife. “Were it not for that infusion of cash John Kerry might not be on the campaign trail today. Because of her financial interest...

Fox says Theresa will release tax returns but will the other Kerry secrets be released?

After years of Democrats demanding that the wealthy pay their "fair share," billionaire couple John and Teresa Kerry last year paid only 12% in income taxes. Apparently, Kerry, who rakes in just over $158,000 a year as a U.S. Senator, and his Heinz-heiress wife don't consider themselves "rich." Americans for Tax Reform reported recently that though the Kerrys earn more than enough to be in the highest tax bracket, they found loopholes and write-offs in order to significantly decrease their taxes. In fact, they lowered their total tax rate to a level below that of most middle class Americans. ATR...

Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John F. Kerry reported $395,338 in income last year and paid $90,575 in taxes. His wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, heiress to the Heinz food company fortune, reported income of $5.1 million last year and paid $587,000 in taxes. Bush last year reported income of $822,000, on which he paid 28 percent in federal taxes.

Ed Rogers, a republican strategist was just on Fox Weekend Live (~10:55 am 9-5-04) and he said, “Yesterday it was reported the Kerry's had $5.49 million of income in 2003 they paid $677,000 in taxes. That's 12% - 12% on five and a half million dollars in income. They want American workers, entrepreneurs, making $200,000 to pay 38%. That’s gonna be a big issue.”

Following press inquiries about Teresa Heinz Kerry's massive fortune, which is estimated at between $900 million and $3.5 billion, and her apparent support for various environmental groups that have been campaigning on Kerry's behalf, Heinz has promised to release the first two pages of her 1040 tax return just one month before election day.[1] As I type this, I am reviewing my 1040 tax return to see what the first two pages illustrate. The first two pages include nothing more than basic, raw numbers, including my salary and the sum of my deductions. The pages do not indicate the names...

The time has long past for Teresa Heinz Kerry to end the free ride she has been enjoying ever since she used her immense inherited wealth for the second time in less than eight years to resuscitate her husband's faltering political career. She needs to reveal the details of her finances, which Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry has deftly exploited to his maximum political benefit — first during his tightly contested 1996 Senate race and then during this year's Democratic presidential primaries and caucuses.

Hunt for Nonfilers Turns up Millionaires, Lawyers, CPAs AccountingWEB.com - Jul-19-2004 - In a crackdown on people who have not filed their tax returns, state and federal officials are finding millionaires, medical professionals, lawyers and other heavy hitters. For example, the suspected list of nonfilers in California for 2002 includes 865 millionaires, 6,756 lawyers, 1,458 CPAs and 20,473 medical professionals, the Wall Street Journal reported. Taxpayers who still haven't filed "have some explaining to do," said Steve Westly, the state controller and chairman of the California Franchise Tax Board. Some people don’t file on time due to health problems or family crises....

July 10, 2004 Campaign Releases Edwards's EarningsBy MICHAEL MOSS and KATE ZERNIKE n the four years before he joined the Senate in 1999, John Edwards made a total of nearly $27 million as a personal injury lawyer who won a string of multimillion-dollar jury verdicts and settlements.The Kerry-Edwards Democratic presidential campaign released Mr. Edwards's income figures in a statement yesterday in response to questions about the taxes he paid after he created a tax shelter in 1995.Mr. Edwards paid $9,353,448 in federal taxes on his income of $26,869,496, but the shelter allowed him to avoid paying $591,112 in Medicare tax,...