Taxable and tax-exempt income is not true economic income. A lot of her assets are probably things like real estate, paintings, stock and the like. There would be no taxable or tax-exempt income on those until sold.
But her Heinz stock yields 2.9%.
I suspect that she enjoys very substantial write-offs from real estate investments.
The article notes that income taxes totalled $750K, but fails to note that this includes state income tax.
Her average Federal income tax rate was just over 10% ...
that's the average rate paid by wage earner with taxable income less $7000 per year. For married individuals filing separate returns, wage earners making taxable income between $7000-$28,000 per year pay a marginal federal income tax rate of 15% -- a rate almost 50% higher than the widow Heinz' average rate!
The article's slam on tax-exempt status of municipal bonds is largely bogus, though. Municipalities pay interest rates much lower than the market rate because of the tax-exempt characteristic of municipal bonds.
But it's thesis is absolutely correct: Kerry and his ilk are slimy, hypocritical demogogues.