Bush Pays Tax of $101,382 on ’89 Income of $456,780

For all those stragglers working on last-minute tax returns, here’s a small bit of comfort: President Bush pays a lot of taxes too.

The President and First Lady released their 1989 federal tax return--all 21 pages of it--Thursday. The bottom line was $101,382 in taxes on a taxable income of $456,780, about 40% of which came from Bush’s salary as President.

Bush’s annual salary as President is $200,000. Because he was not inaugurated until the 20th day of 1989, he earned $189,167 as President and $6,229.15 for his last few days as vice president. Bush also earned $259,970 from various investments and business holdings, most of which are in a blind trust.

The Bush family also reported $94,702 in itemized deductions. Bush does not have a mortgage on his home in Kennebunkport, Me., so his chief source of deductions were contributions to charities, a total of $37,866.

Among the recipients of the Bushes’ largess were relief funds for victims of Hurricane Hugo ($3,000) and the Northern California earthquake ($2,000); the United Negro College Fund ($8,141) and the traditionally black Alcorn State College in Mississippi ($1,000); Bush’s alma maters, Yale ($440) and Phillips Academy ($1,500); the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston ($7,141) and several other medical charities ($2,650) and churches ($1,550).

The contributions to the M.D. Anderson center and the United Negro College Fund are not round numbers because Bush gave them all the proceeds from his campaign biography, “Looking Forward,” which earned him $14,282 in 1989.

Bush’s investments did better in 1989 than the year before. His trust earned $208,274 in interest and dividends this past year, compared to $155,662 in 1988. Those looking for investment tips, however, will have to look elsewhere. Because the trust is blind, there is no public accounting of what is in it.

The President earned far more than his understudy, Vice President Dan Quayle. Although Quayle comes from a wealthy family, the $133,696 in taxable income he and his wife, Marilyn, reported is almost entirely from his $106,528 government salary. Quayle also reported $14,572 in dividends from the family-controlled Central Newspapers Inc.

Bush’s tax bill would have been somewhat lower had the Administration prevailed with one of its major policy initiatives of 1989--lowering the capital gains tax. The President’s blind trust reported $36,608 in capital gains, which at the 28% rate cost Bush $10,250 in income taxes. Bush has proposed lowering the maximum capital gains tax rate to 20%, which would have lowered his tax bill by about $3,000.

Bush and his wife, Barbara, checked the box that provides $1 each to the Federal Election Commission to help publicly finance presidential campaigns. However, the Quayles declined to participate in the effort. According to the Internal Revenue Service, about 20% of taxpayers check the box to earmark $1 of their taxes for the campaign fund, begun in 1972.