Obama's Tax Returns

The Obamas have released their annual tax return, and one thing it shows is that as an investor, President Obama is a statist, or at the very least highly tax efficient. If he collected anything by way of dividends or capital gains in a banner year for the stock market, he did it in tax-exempt retirement accounts, because he recorded barely anything in investment income. For a guy who has reported a lot of assets — all those millions in book royalties — he's sure put a lot of assets in Treasury bills. Of their $481,098 in adjusted gross income reported for 2013, $394,796 was wages, $104,809 was his income from book royalties, and he earned a mere three dollars in ordinary dividends. I'm not an accountant so maybe I am missing something. Maybe he is racking up unrealized capital gains in non-dividend paying stocks that he plans to sell when he is out of office and no longer has to disclose his returns. But it takes some effort to have as many assets as Mr. Obama is reported to have and to have so little in taxable investment income.