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News Sunday, Feb 28 2016

Rubio Camp Drops the Ball With Incomplete Tax Returns

Feb 28, 2016

Rubio Drops the Ball

Don’t take it from us, read the clips:
 
@ByronYork:

@alexconant Are the entire returns going to be released? Did I miss?

Politico:

Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio, who has been dogged by questions over his personal finances, released portions of his tax returns Saturday, but the documents don’t reveal details like which tax breaks he claimed or how much he gave to charity.

 

Wall Street Journal:

Because the candidate only released the first two pages of his return, it is impossible to tell exactly how much they donated to charity or what they deducted as business expenses. The complete returns would include additional forms that would offer more detail.

“It would be helpful to have access to Schedule A so we could have an idea of his charitable donations and other itemized deductions,” said Anthony Nitti, an accountant at Withum Smith and Brown who reviewed the returns Saturday.

In several years, the couple paid penalties because they didn’t pay enough taxes during the year through withholding or estimated tax payments. For instance, that penalty in 2013 was $2,249.

Mr. Nitti said that it appeared from the returns that Mr. Rubio may have paid interest and penalties because he paid his taxes late. Taxpayers can get automatics filing extension past the April 15 deadline but they are required to pay their full tax bill by April 15.

Bloomberg: 

“The gross numbers without the schedules don’t tell you anything,” said Martin Schenkman, a tax lawyer and certified public accountant in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

Rubio’s campaign didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment.

The records — which amount to the first two pages of each annual tax filing the Rubios made from 2010 through 2014 — show that they paid federal income taxes at the rate of about 23 percent. Coupled with prior returns from 2000 through 2009, which Rubio released when he ran for the U.S. Senate in Florida, the documents raise questions, Schenkman said.

“He’s attacking Trump on the same disclosure issues, but his own disclosures are obfuscatory,” Shenkman said.

The Associated Press:

The documents Rubio has released are not complete tax filings, as Mitt Romney provided in 2012 and Hillary Clinton produced last year. Instead, Rubio released the first two pages of his 1040 form, which summarizes the details of his income and taxes.

No such calculation of charitable contributions is possible for the years covered in Saturday’s release, however, because Rubio did not make public the part of his tax returns that itemizes deductions.

 
NBC:

The documents released Saturday are not complete tax filings, only summaries. They do not include his Schedule E form, which details rental and corporate income.

Rubio has repeatedly hammered Trump over not releasing similar information. Trump said Thursday that he hadn’t released his tax filings because he was being audited.

Also missing from Rubio’s Saturday release: his Schedule D form on capital gains, which would detail investment income.


Published: Feb 28, 2016

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