Nation: First Taxpayer’s Return for 1977

Shortly before Jimmy Carter’s press conference last week, Wife Rosalynn stopped by the Oval Office with some good news. An IRS audit of the Carters’ federal tax returns for 1973, 1975 and 1976 showed that they owed $168.03 in back taxes for 1975 but were due a refund of $8,971.50 on the taxes they paid for 1973. Next day, the White House made public the Carters’ tax return for 1977 and a statement of their current net worth. Highlights:

> Their total assets were down slightly during 1977, from $ 1,048,039.69 to $970,857.74. Their net worth also dropped, from $822,638.55 to $795,357.74. Because Carter decided not to invest in securities while in office, they had $204,979.04 in bank accounts at the end of 1977, compared with $810.60 a year earlier.

> Their income for 1977 totaled $498,942.29, including $236,458.32 in salary and expense allowances, $7,515.42 in interest from savings accounts, $137,404.69 in royalties from his autobiography Why Not the Best? and $114,282.86 in dividends from a blind trust that manages their interest in the family peanut warehouse. The trust also reported a loss of $306,271 during the year.

> Their taxes for 1977 totaled $48,152.12 on a taxable income of $121,826.98, after deductions, primarily for the trust’s losses and charities. Their contributions amounted to $38,551, including $25,000 to the Carter Foundation for Government Affairs, Inc., which eventually will benefit students of political science, and $6,000 to the U.S. Treasury—the amount Carter promised last year to donate as a token payment for 1976, when he owed no federal taxes at all.