SwiftVets.com

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Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Full Disclosure: John Edwards often speaks of "two Americas" — one that "pays the taxes" and another that "gets the tax breaks." Meet Teresa Heinz Kerry and her tax accountants.

John Kerry wants to raise taxes on everyone making over $200,000, rolling back Bush's "tax cuts for the rich." So why did his wife pay only 12.5% of her income in taxes last year?

According to documents released by the Kerry campaign, Teresa Heinz Kerry in 2003 paid taxes at a rate barely above the rate paid by the lowest-income Americans who actually pay taxes. She reported a total income of $5,072,533, including nearly $2.8 million that escaped all federal taxes because it was from interest-free investments from state, city and other public funds.

On that income, she paid $628,401 in taxes, or a rate of 12.4% on her reported gross, slightly above the lowest 10% bracket. By comparison, the average middle class family that can't afford an army of tax accountants and lawyers to find ways to shelter its income pays more than 20%. George and Laura Bush reported paying $227,490 in federal taxes on income of $822,126, a rate of 27.7% — more than twice the rate paid by Mrs. Kerry.

What Mrs. Kerry didn't release was almost as revealing. She refused to provide any details on the $267,541 she claimed in itemized deductions or regarding her personal charity contributions. Nor has she released any schedules to show where her money is invested, how much she invests overseas, or her total wealth.

Why is this important? Teresa Heinz Kerry has used her immense inherited wealth to rescue her husband's political career twice in the last eight years.

In his 1996 re-election bid against popular Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, Kerry squeaked by with 52%, thanks in large part to a $1.7 million 11th-hour "loan" from his wife and despite a pledge by both candidates to limit use of their personal family fortunes to $500,000.

Last year, when her husband's primary campaign was running on fumes, and Howard Dean had not yet imploded, Sen. Kerry mortgaged his half of the couple's five-story, 12-room Beacon Hill house, one of the five mansions inherited or purchased by his billionaire wife, for $6.4 million. Talk about "two Americas."

Where the Heinz fortune goes matters. For example, she has contributed heavily to the League of Conservation Voters and other groups whose leaders sit on the board of the $1.2 billion Heinz Foundation. How much of her money and the money she controls has found its way to 527 groups that have led the way around campaign finance laws to support her husband's candidacy?

John Kerry has made a major issue of "Benedict Arnold CEOs" who outsource American jobs, yet has reaped major political benefits exploiting his wife's fortune, built in large part by profit reaped by the foreign branches of U.S.-based Heinz and the tens of thousands of overseas jobs they created.

In late July, in what Bush critics might call a photo op, John and Teresa joined John and Elizabeth Edwards at a Wendy's in upstate New York to celebrate the Edwards' wedding anniversary. Dining at Wendy's is how they said they celebrated each year.

After mugging for the cameras, John and Teresa returned to their campaign bus to enjoy their real lunch — catered shrimp vindaloo, grilled diver sea scallops and prosciutto-wrapped chicken prepared by a Culinary Institute of America-trained chef from an upscale eatery at the Newburgh Yacht Club.

Do as we say, not as we do. One wonders if they kept the receipt for next year's taxes.

Ketchup, anyone?