RI's top politicos are making their income tax filings public. Here's what we learned.

PROVIDENCE – Which of Rhode Island top politicos are willing to make their tax filings public? Are there any jaw-dropping surprises?

Not really jaw-dropping. But all five of Rhode Island's current statewide officers have voluntarily made their tax filings public for years, to one degree after another.

And the latest batch raises a few questions, namely about a 5% year-over-year increase in retirement income in the McKee household, and a dissolved "foundation" in Treasurer James Diossa's Central Falls world. We'll explain as best we can.

What else can we learn about the state's top five from their tax filings in a non-election year when there are no candidate-on-candidate fireworks, no challengers with eye-popping, multimillion-dollar incomes and no evasive answers to the question – where exactly do you live?

More: Why Operation Plunder Dome lives on after 25 years

Gov. Dan McKee's tax returns

No surprise: Gov. Dan McKee is not just a late bloomer who ascended to the state's top office months short of his 70th birthday. He is also a habitually late filer of both his income taxes and his annual ethics disclosure statement, and is the only top state official who has not yet submitted his 2023 income tax filing, though he is not yet technically late.

The IRS tax filing deadline has been extended this year to July 15 for those in counties hit by storms in September, December and January that were federally declared disasters.

McKee waited until fall 2023, after the last possible extension date, to provide The Journal with copies of his 2022 tax fillings that showed: he and his wife, Susan, had paid $32,522 in federal taxes and $8,702 in state taxes to Rhode Island on their $215,578 adjusted gross income that year.

Their 2022 income included his W-2 earnings as governor, along with $59,416 in "pension and annuity" income, $45,200 in Social Security and a $14,491 IRA distribution.

Among the unanswered questions: why the McKees' "pension and annuity income" jumped by 5% from $56,511 in 2021 to $59,416 in 2022, when cost-of-living increases for most retired public employees were frozen?

FIrst Lady Susan McKee's $56,511 pension as a former public school reading teacher went up by only $351 in 2022, according to Frank Karpinski, the administrator of Rhode Island's retirement office. He surmised one or both of the McKees got money from another source of retirement income in 2022.

No answer yet from the McKee team to this, and to a question about a $477 increase in the McKees' AGI attributed to an unidentified "pass-through entity."

McKee will make his 2023 tax filings public when they are done, his spokeswoman Andrea Palagi promises. (Of note, McKee declined to make his tax filings public during most of his years as the state's lieutenant governor but has done so since election year 2018. )

Attorney General Peter Neronha's tax returns

As the spouse of a medical doctor, Attorney General Peter Neronha had the longest and, as usual, the most complicated joint filing – though not as complicated as it was for 2021 when his wife, Dr. Shelly Johnson, a partner in two Coastal Medical entities, received proceeds from their sale to Lifespan.

For 2023, Neronha and his wife paid $22,840 in state taxes and $74,928 in federal taxes on what for them is a more modest adjusted gross income of $428,125.

Treasurer James Diossa's tax returns

State Treasurer James Diossa, who oversees the investment of the state's $11-billion-plus pension fund, paid $8,652 in federal taxes and $2,731 in state taxes on his $100,590 adjusted gross income, with no indication on his filing that he has any investment earnings of his own.

He and his partner – Sen. Sandra Cano – each listed one of their two children as a dependent for tax purposes, which in Diossa's case included a child tax credit.

His ethics filing for the year indicates he had an unpaid role until April 2023 at the now dissolved "Diossa Foundation," which the former Central Falls mayor described this way in a 2022 interview:

"When I finished my mayor's office, I put together a group of people, including Viola Davis, and the intention was to work with the Rhode Island College campus to give Central Falls students leadership."

He was referring to RIC's Workforce Development on Dexter Street and to the Academy Award winning actress who grew up in the city. But he acknowledged: "It hasn't quite taken off."

Lieutenant Governor Sabina Matos' tax returns

Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos and her husband, Patrick Ward, who works in program development at the state Department of Human Services, paid $6,767 in state taxes and $25,311 in federal taxes on their $196,771 adjusted gross income.

On their way, they ended up owing taxes to the federal government and seeking a state tax refund.

Secretary of State Greg Amore's tax returns

Secretary of State Gregg Amore and his wife, Lee Amore, paid $33,103 in federal taxes and $8,490 in state taxes on their $222,713 adjusted state income.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: It's tax season for RI politicians too: Here's what their filings say