{"id":273,"date":"2009-07-09T23:14:32","date_gmt":"2009-07-10T06:14:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.onecle.com\/?p=273"},"modified":"2009-07-09T23:14:32","modified_gmt":"2009-07-10T06:14:32","slug":"sen-ensigns-taxing-affair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.onecle.com\/blog\/2009\/07\/09\/sen-ensigns-taxing-affair\/","title":{"rendered":"Sen. Ensign's Taxing Affair"},"content":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles Times<\/strong>: Sen. Ensign admits parents gave money to mistress and family <\/a>. The gifts to Cynthia Hampton; her husband, Doug; and two of their children were made “out of concern for the well-being of long-time family friends during a difficult time,” said a statement from Ensign’s attorney. The money was paid in $12,000 increments in April 2008, the month that both Hamptons left Ensign’s employ.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What ever happened to round numbers? When I first read the Los Angeles Times article, the $96,000 given by Sen. John Ensign’s parents to his mistress and her family really stood out, and not because $96,000 is a huge amount of money to hand over to someone. Why didn’t his parents give a nice, round $100,000? Taxes.<\/p>\n

In 2008, the annual exclusion for gifts was $12,000 per donor\/donee. So, Sen. Ensign’s father could gift $12,000 to Cynthia Hampton and $12,000 to Doug Hampton without having to pay the gift tax. Likewise, Sen. Ensign’s mother could gift $12,000 to Cynthia Hampton and $12,000 to Doug Hampton without either gift being a taxable gift. But, that only totals $48,000. So, to really demonstrate their generosity (without incurring a gift tax), Sen. Ensign’s parents each gave $12,000 to two of the three Hampton children. That is how you “gift” $96,000 without being liable for gift taxes.<\/p>\n

Another interesting issue is that Doug Hampton intimated that “Ensign paid his wife ‘a lot more than’ $25,000 in severance when she left his campaign and political action committee.” Unfortunately, the article does not indicate exactly how much Ensign paid nor whether Doug Hampton was referring to the $98,000 received from Sen. Ensign’s parents as being part of the “severance.” We’ll just leave it to the IRS to determine whether the $98,000 was a gift where full consideration was not received in return or part of a severance payment. The IRS just might be taxing this affair after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles Times: Sen. Ensign admits parents gave money to mistress and family . The gifts to Cynthia Hampton; her husband, Doug; and two of their children were made “out of concern for the well-being of long-time family friends during a difficult time,” said a statement from Ensign’s attorney. The money was paid in $12,000 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.onecle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.onecle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.onecle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.onecle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.onecle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.onecle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.onecle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.onecle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.onecle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}