Bush, Kerry Taxes Reported

President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush reported taxable income of $727,083 for 2003 and paid $227,490 in federal income taxes, the White House said Tuesday.

The couple’s income came from the president’s $400,000 annual salary and investments from the trusts in which their assets were held.

The Bushes contributed $68,360 to churches and charitable organizations, including the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, the Evergreen Chapel at Camp David and Tarrytown United Methodist Church in Austin, Texas. The couple also donated to St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, where they often attend services.

Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, reported $395,338 in taxable income and paid $90,575 in federal income taxes.

Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, filed separately.

Kerry earned $89,000 from a book he wrote, “A Call to Service.” His campaign said he was paying the taxes on the book’s proceeds and donating the balance to charities, including the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans and Goodwill Industries.

Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne, reported taxable income of $813,226, including $178,437 in deferred payment from Halliburton Co., the Texas oil services company where Cheney once served as chief executive officer.

The couple owed $253,067 in federal taxes for 2003. The Cheneys last year paid $258,779 in taxes through withholding and estimated tax payments. They elected to apply the resulting $5,712 overpayment to their 2004 estimated tax payment, the vice president’s office said.

The Cheneys donated $321,141 to charity in 2003, mainly from royalties that Lynne Cheney earned from Simon & Shuster for her books.

The vice president’s office said that Cheney’s income from Halliburton, which received multibillion-dollar government contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq, was not linked to the firm’s financial well-being. Cheney’s office said that his deferred compensation from Halliburton last year was part of a five-year, “unalterable” agreement reached at the end of 1998.

“The amount of deferred compensation received by the vice president is fixed and is not affected by Halliburton’s current economic performance or earnings in any way,” the vice president’s office said in a statement.

Cheney’s continuing ties to Halliburton have drawn criticism from some Democrats, who question the nature of the relationship.

Cheney’s annual salary as vice president is $198,600.

According to calculations by Bloomberg News, tax cuts that Bush championed and last year signed into law saved his family about $23,000. They saved the Cheneys as much as $60,000.

A new 15% rate on dividend income saved the Bushes $2,586, and lower rates and tax breaks for married people saved them $20,600, according to Bloomberg calculations.

Cheney and his wife saved $19,855 in taxes on dividends they received and as much as $19,350 on capital gains from investments. Lower tax rates for couples saved them about $21,000, Bloomberg calculations showed.

The Bushes declined to designate $3 each of their tax money to help finance presidential elections. But the Cheneys chose to divert $6 in tax money for that purpose.