Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley allowed reporters to inspect a two-page summary of his 2013 federal income tax returns Friday, but that wasn’t enough for Democratic Party Executive Director Jonathan Harris.
“We’re hosting this call now not because of what we know because we don’t know,” Harris said Sunday. “…what’s there? What’s on his state tax returns? And why won’t he release them publicly?”
Harris wondered if Foley filed income taxes in Connecticut, or maybe he files in another state like Delaware, Florida, or New York. His federal income tax return would have included all of his income from any state in which he files or owns a business, but a state return would show exactly how much of that income he claims in Connecticut.
Chris Cooper, a spokesman for Foley’s campaign, said Foley does file income taxes in Connecticut. However, he did not respond to questions about whether Foley would release a two-page summary of his Connecticut Resident Income Tax Return.
Malloy has released two of the four-page summary of his Connecticut Resident Income Tax Return. Foley has allowed reporters to inspect his two-page federal tax summary for 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013, but has not released a two-page summary of his Connecticut return.
“The information within them must be extraordinarily damaging to warrant refusal to release them,” Harris said. “….is it possible he pays more taxes to a neighboring state than he does to Connecticut?”
Last week, Foley criticized Malloy’s tax return.
“At least I included everything in my summary, all my income,” Foley said last week during a campaign stop. “He apparently failed to include income on that summary.”
Foley was referring to nearly $200,000 of rental income the Malloy’s received for two years on their former Stamford home. They declared just $1,795 of that as income on their federal tax return. The Malloy’s, who moved to Hartford to live in the governor’s mansion after the 2010 election, sold their Stamford home for $1.3 million in April.
The itemized deductions the Malloy’s used in order to reduce the rental income to $1,795 for tax purposes show up on a different tax form. Malloy only released four pages of documents, two federal and two state, for the past four tax years.
“These are deductions that almost every middle class homeowner takes advantage of while the deductions that Tom Foley takes that allows him to pay little to no income taxes are available only to millionaires like himself,” Mark Bergman, a spokesman for Malloy’s campaign, said.
Bergman said the Malloy’s claimed things such as mortgage interest to reduce their liability on the rental income. In doing so, they joined about 34.1 million taxpayers who claimed mortgage interest deductions in 2012.
