TAX NEWS - June 2010

NYC Tax: Bloomberg's Tax Returns: He's Still Really Rich!

Last Friday, Mayor Bloomberg allowed reporters to take a peek at his taxes. Guess what—he's still crazy rich, since he's able to not only put $500,000 into a trust for his ex-wife, he's also put over $1 million into a trust for an ex-girlfriend!

The NY Times described the "highly controlled" peek — reporters were "[forbidden] from making copies" — and how the documents "were edited for the presentation, displaying earnings and losses not as dollar amounts but as ranges represented by letters A ($1,000 to $5,000) to G ($500,000 or more)." His financial investments also did better in 2009 than in 2008 (the Times reminds us he installed his former advisers from the Quadrangle group to a firm devoted just to his interest).

Other tidbits: He made a few thousand from appearances on Law & Order and a Sesame Street special and "granted a loan to Day Road Capital LLC, apparently so a Bloomberg LP executive could buy a $360,000 condo in TriBeCa." Plus he donated a set of four chairs to charity. The mayor's donations are coming under scrutiny as the Manhattan DA's office looks at the $1.3 million he gave to the state Independence Party, because the party hasn't kept very good records of how it spent the money.