We’ve seen Republican U.S. Senate candidate Chris Shays’ tax returns.
We’ve seen Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Chris Murphy’s.
Now one of Murphy’s opponents for the party’s nomination – ex-Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz – has released her information.
Some points of interest:
1. Bysiewicz and her husband, David Donaldson, took in $116,722 from their Bysiewicz-Donaldson Agency insurance biz. The couple’s gross adjusted income, adding in IRA distributions ($28,665), pensions/annuities ($126) and rental real estate/royalties/partnerships/S corporations/trusts ($12,475) totalled $154,360. In contrast the Shays earned $373,694 and the Murphys $220,353.
Bysiewicz has been claiming she’s the only champion of the middle class in this election, so good for her that she’s also the poorest of the major Senate candidates so far. Democrat William Tong of Stamford has pledged to release his returns, but he and his wife are practicing lawyers so I’m thinking Bysiewicz has got Tong beat on who’s the middle-classiest. They’ll all be dwarfed by Republican Linda McMahon, the professional wrestling maven who sunk $50 million of the family’s World Wrestling Entertainment fortune into her failed 2010 bid for Senate. McMahon so far has refused requests to make public her tax returns during her 2012 race with Shays for the GOP nod.
2. Bysiewicz and Donaldson paid $38,249 in federal taxes and are owed $5,047.
3. They paid $6,901 in income taxes, $5,843 in real estate taxes and $197 in personal property taxes.
4. Admittedly I cracked a tiny smile when I noticed the couple has investments in Bank of America. Bysiewicz is also campaigning as the candidate who will hold Wall Street accountable. But the couple only earned $12 – enough to buy a couple of mementos from McMahon’s 2010 Senate campaign on eBay.