Pols Pay Taxes Too

Governor Elliot Spitzer and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo are not ones to leave their tax filing to the last second. In an Albany tradition of making NY state politicians' returns public, the pair opened their books to the press Friday. 1010 WINS reported the details. While the pay for public servants is relatively low in comparison to what attorneys in private practice could make, neither Spitzer nor Cuomo are feeling the pinch. Spitzer made a little more than $145,000 as NY's Attorney General last year, but announced a 2006 income of $1.9 million. The Governor's father was a successful real estate developer, and Spitzer declared $1.4 million of his annual income was derived from rental properties. His wife, who's a practicing attorney for a non-profit agency, does not collect any salary.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed for a six-month extension this year, presumably because sorting out $1.47 million in income can get fairly complicated. That's what Cuomo earned in part working for Island Capital Management in 2006.

In addition to their taxes, both men gave large sums of money to charity. Gov. Spitzer and his wife donated more than $140,000 to charity in 2006. In 2005, Andrew Cuomo donated $75,000 to charity, most of it going to the charity he helped found in 1986 called HELP USA.

(Image from richies, by occipital lobe at flickr)