You may recall the compassion the President's mother showed shortly after Katrina hit:
Barbara Bush said: "Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston."Ah, another compassionate conservative just like her son.
Then she added: "What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.
"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."
At least with the mother, we get some sense of what that means. Compassionate conservatives figure out how to use tragedies to their financial advantage.
Looks likes W's mother managed to pull a double tax dodge with her "gift" to Katrina. She contributed to a non-profit, so gets to take that as a charitable deduction. But, she earmarked the gift to her son's company via the non-profit.
The reality of the transaction is that instead of giving Neil a direct gift, he gets the money funneled via the non-profit. Therein lies the second part of the dodge -- if Barbara gave the money directly to Neil, she'd have to pay a gift tax on the amount that exceeded $12,000. It's probably safe to assume that her contribution was over $12,000 based on today's article in the Houston Chronicle:
She gave specific instructions that part of the money be sent to the Scottish Space School Foundation. She asked that group, in turn, to use the money to buy eight Ignite systems — valued at $3,800 each — for Harris County schools with large numbers of Hurricane Katrina evacuees, according to Bush and fund officials.Big tax deduction for her gift. Neil benefits from his mother's earmark. No gift tax. She's a shrewd one that Barbara Bush.
It's good to be Barbara Bush and not pay taxes...only the little people do that.
