After finally giving voters a slight glimpse into her record on paying taxes, public advocate candidate Letitia James has some explaining to do.
Having repeatedly been challenged by her opponent, state Sen. Daniel Squadron, to put her finances before the public, James, a Brooklyn councilwoman, finally released her 2012 income tax return on Wednesday.
Often, candidates will lay out several years’ worth of returns. James stuck with a single document, showing 2012 taxable gross pay of $120,666. This would equal her Council salary of $112,500 plus a $10,000 Council stipend — or lulu, supposedly paid for extra service — less pre-tax exclusions like health insurance. James also listed itemized deductions, including charitable gifts of only $1,190.
These seemingly ordinary figures struck the Daily News Editorial Board as quite remarkable. Here’s why.
Since 2005, the Citizens Union good-government group has asked Council candidates whether they supported abolishing lulus. The payments should be eliminated because, with full power over who gets how much, the Council speaker uses the bonus money to buy loyalty and punish members who show any hint of independence.
In 2005 and 2009, James stated in writing that she opposed lulus. In 2010, Citizens Union launched a “Lulu Watch” website to track how members had lived up to their campaign rhetoric. We joined the fun by asking the councilmembers who called for a ban whether they would accept or reject the stipends allocated to them by Speaker Christine Quinn.
The hunt turned up 12 members who either refused a lulu or said they were donating the money to charity. James was one of those who committed, in July 2010, to making charitable donations, and we found her to be “upstanding.”
Every six months, as the Council was cutting semi-annual lulu checks, we kept a running tally of those who refused payment outright, those who had pledged charitable donations, and those who were pocketing the funds. Twice in 2011, twice in 2012 and twice in 2013, we published James’ name on a list of praiseworthy donors.
Thus, James’ 2012 tax return was eye-opening in that she appeared to have reported a $10,000 lulu as income but showed no deduction indicating that she given the money to charity.
Inquiring minds now want to see the 2010 and 2011 tax returns that James is keeping secret, along with the names of the charitable causes to which she purportedly donated. The information will reveal whether James upheld her word — and went even further by claiming no tax benefit for her generosity, whether she spun a falsehood, or whether she made some donations and then accepted undeserved credit for giving more.
We asked James’ campaign for clarification Thursday. The response was silence. Wonder why.
