The New York Times article, Obamas’ Tax Returns Show Donation Spike, states that:
“The 2006 return also show a charitable deduction for a $13,000 donation to the Congressional Black Caucus. It is illegal to deduct political contributions as charitable contributions. The campaign said Mr. Obama had filed an amended return to eliminate that item as a deduction.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/us/politics/26taxes.html?ref=politics
Isn’t he a lawyer, isn’t he supposed to be the preeminent law student? How is it that he turns out to be so ignorant and so incompetent that he takes an illegal tax deduction right as he is running for President? How could he not understand enough of the law, or of the government, or of U.S. history, to not make such a mistake?
Let’s really look at Mr. Obama’s tax returns. First of all, the returns for 2006 and 2005 look too good to be true. I question whether or not Mr. Obama amended these returns and recreated the original returns to reflect the amended ones filed on Form 1040X.
The reason I pose this question is that it seems odd that Mr. Obama did not incur any expenses relating to his business as an author (other than legal fees and commissions). Does he mean to tell us that he incurred no additional expenses such as office supplies, travel, and telephone? Why would he leave these expenses off his tax return when in fact they would certainly be legitimate deductions? The only reason I can think of, other than attempting to make the public see that he is extremely patriotic, is that he used the facilities at the senate for his own personal use in writing his book.
Also, why didn’t Mr. Obama deduct any property taxes on his home in 2005? He must have incurred them because he paid over $60,000 in mortgage interest.
Blog posted on Barack Obama’s Campaign page 3/27/08
Posted by: Tom CPA | Mar 27, 2008
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2008/03/obama-releases.html