Senator Jim Bunning makes people pay for his autograph
Remember this post when I pointed out that Hall of Famer / U.S. Senator Jim Bunning was making people pay for his autograph in Cooperstown last month?
The Washington D.C. based political newspaper Roll Call followed up with a story today that reports that all the money Bunning makes from his autograph signing sessions goes to The Jim Bunning Foundation.
However...
The foundation is a charity that lives almost entirely off the proceeds of Bunning¹s signing fees, according to its Internal Revenue Service tax records and Bunning¹s personal financial disclosure forms. Since its creation in 1996, the foundation has doled out dozens of little grants each year, mostly to Catholic schools and kids¹ charities, never totaling more than $20,000 in a year.
The foundation¹s largest outlay every year is the salary of it¹s sole employee: Jim Bunning. The Senator reports a $20,000 annual salary from the foundation, and the organization reports to the IRS annual salary costs of about $31,000, the difference presumably being payroll taxes and other miscellaneous costs of paying Bunning for the avg. 1hr./wk. that he works.
In 2007, the foundation took in about $62,000 from Bunning¹s signings, about $51,000 in 2006 and $42,000 in 2005, so Bunning is obviously not paid by piecework; he made $20,000 each year.
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Comments (1)
A true Signor Ferrari