Washington, Apr. 13 (ANI): President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama grossed just over 600,000 dollars in 2012, far less than they took in during 2011, according to their tax return that was released by the White House on Friday.
The Obamas reported an adjusted gross income of 608,611 dollars during the election year, more than 180,000 dollars less than they grossed for the previous year.
This year they paid 112,214 dollars in federal taxes, an effective rate of 18.4 percent and last year they paid an effective tax rate of 19.2 percent, Politico reported.
The release of the first couple’s tax return comes with far less fanfare than it did a year ago, when the President spent the week before Tax Day advocating for the Buffett rule, which would set a minimum tax rate of 30 percent on those earning more than 1 million dollars annually.
The drop in the income is largely due to smaller earnings from sales of the President’s books, from 441,000 dollars in 2011 to just 259,000 dollars in 2012.
As the income of the Obamas fell the charitable contributions in 2012 became smaller, in all, they gave just over 150,000 dollars – 24.6 percent of their gross — to 33 charities.
The biggest single contribution was 103,871 dollars to the Fisher House Foundation, to which Barack has committed to contribute proceeds from his children’s book. (ANI)