PRESIDENT OBAMA’S TAX RETURN SHOWS LITTLE STOCK ACTIVITY IN 2010
Technology is incredible and it is amazing that we can now all view President Obama’s tax return right on the Internet. No secrets for him!
It is very interesting to see how much he made ($1,795,614) and how his tax return is filled out. One thing I noticed was that he had under $10,000 in dividend income and he didn’t have ANY capital gains or losses. Now I know things work differently for the President as he can’t buy and sell stocks like normal people do. This is because he needs to keep the illusion that he isn’t ever personally profiting from the decisions he makes in office. Therefore, his savings and investments are all put in a trust of some kind and I believe someone else manages his money for him.
One thing I did see was that he had a long term capital LOSS carryover of $122,527 from 2009! As you only get to offset losses against capital gains (of which he had none), he only got to take the standard $3,000 deduction on the front page of his 1040 form. That’s just like my tax return!
To show how terrible this law is: if he never has any more capital gains for the rest of his life, he will be deducting that $3,000 for the next 40 years. I hope he lives that long. For anyone that takes a big hit in the stock market and decides just to quit and never buy stocks again, they might have many years ahead of them trying to get their money back from the government for the taxes they basically overpaid.
Based on Obama’s tax return, it sure doesn’t seem like he has too much of his money in the stock market. If he does, it is all in stocks that don’t pay dividends. From his Schedule D Capital Gains And Losses sheet, it looks like he didn’t sell any stocks last year.
If you want to take a look at his tax return for your self take a look at it right here.
