Yeah, But How Big Are Their 529's?

President Obama's victorious run for the White House was a financial success as well.  This year, we learn, he earned $5.5 million.  Until only a year or two ago, Barack and Michelle were a normal, uber-elite upper middle class couple - living well but worrying about how to pay two Ivy tuitions in a few years.  That problem has now been solved, I hope, by strategic investment in a pair of 529 plans.  I think lots of us would like to know: where does a guy with the ultimate inside knowledge stick his kids' college money these days?

Another thought: the President and the First Lady must have been trapped on the AMT! 

If the AMT were a New York subway line, where would it run? 

(My vote: crosstown from 79th and Broadway to 89th and East End.)

Comments

[Matthew Reid Krell]

The AMT would run from GCS to JFK - no stops.

[BDG]

He'll put the money in the plan of whatever state he expects to live in when he withdraws the funds, because states don't exempt withdrawals from one another's 529 plans. And states usually only offer one plan, the one they run themselves (via some contractor). (And, somehow, despite my efforts to the contrary, this is consistent with the Dormant Commerce Clause -- see Kentucky v. Davis). So don't draw any inferences about the quality of the plan from where the Obamas stow their money.

Also, they probably aren't affected by the AMT, since they phase out the top. (AMT has a top marginal rate of 28%, so very high income taxpayers -- those with substantial income taxed at the maximum standard rate of 35% -- end up not paying AMT).

--a tax nitpicker