Presidential hopeful Robert Francis O'Rourke and his wife, Amy, underpaid by more than $4,000 on their taxes in 2013 and 2014 while O'Rourke was a member of Congress, according to tax returns released on Monday.
The O'Rourkes took an incorrect amount of deductions on medical expenses, not paying attention to a limit which only allowed deductions for expenses that were over 10 percent of income for people their age, Fox News reports. If the O'Rourkes had not taken nearly $16,000 in dental and medical deductions, they would have had a higher taxable income.
"After becoming aware of this error, the accounting firm that prepared the filings was immediately informed and will file an amendment as appropriate," an aide to O’Rourke said in a statement.
According to the Wall Street Journal, 2013 was the first year that a new law was put in place changing limits for medical deductions, which were based on taxpayers's age. If the payer didn't enter his age while preparing taxes, tax softwares would mark a full deduction instead of no deduction, Tony Nitti, a CPA at RubinBrown LLP told the Journal.
O'Rourke joined other Democratic candidates in releasing 10 years (or more) of tax returns on Monday. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.), Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) have done also so, following a long-held custom.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) also released 10 years of his tax returns on Monday, after promising to do so for several months. Sanders's tax returns revealed that since he became nationally famous in and after the 2016 election, he has become a millionaire. Sanders attributes his success to writing popular books about the need to implement socialist policies in the United States.
"I wrote a best-selling book," Sanders told the New York Times last week. "If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too."