McBride's wife keeps pay private

TAMPA -- For at least a decade, the jointly filed tax returns of Bill McBride and his wife, Alex Sink, chronicled their lucrative rise in law and banking: from combined incomes of nearly $500,000 in 1993 to $1-million in 1996 to $3.1-million in 1999.

But just as McBride was deciding to run for governor, the couple abruptly switched to filing individual returns.

Now, with his bid for the Democratic nomination in its final days, McBride continues to refuse to disclose his wife's tax returns for the past two years. Critics say that prevents the voters from getting an accurate picture of his family's debts, income and exemptions.

Sink said Friday that filing tax returns separately made sense.

"We were probably thinking that if Bill was going to be a candidate, it was important for our finances not to be mingled," she said. "It's the candidate's finances that are important, not the spouse's."

The difference in McBride's financial status with and without her is significant: In 1999, McBride made $523,000.

McBride is the only major statewide candidate in Florida in memory to file a separate tax return from his spouse. But Sink is also the first would-be first lady to make more than her husband.

As he campaigned Friday in Tallahassee and Tampa, McBride left the decision to her.

"It's a privacy issue, and it's an issue with my wife," he said. "She's the one who had her own career when we married, and her own separate accounts and her own money."

McBride, 57, is the former managing partner of Holland & Knight, Florida's largest law firm. Sink, 53, retired in 2000 as president of Florida operations for Bank of America.

Questions about Sink's tax returns have come up before, but scrutiny of McBride has sharpened as polls show his race with former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno is now dead even. Republican Gov. Jeb Bush has released 10 years of joint tax returns for he and his wife, Columba. So has Reno, who is unmarried.

McBride also released his tax returns for the past 10 years. But he and his wife filed jointly only through 1999, so her returns were not included in McBride's 2000 and 2001 disclosures.

Sink said Friday she is not keen on releasing them, but will consider it.

"We haven't thought about it. We have to get through the primary first," Sink said. She added: "I'm not the candidate, and I think in many respects it would be misleading. Bill doesn't have access to my bank account."

It's a new situation for Florida. Virtually all statewide elected officials, including U.S. Sens. Bob Graham and Bill Nelson, file jointly with their wives, and their wives don't work outside the home. Neither does Columba Bush.

Chuck Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, said all candidates have an obligation to disclose their spouses' income and entanglements, "unless they're going to suggest they live in separate houses and it's not a real marriage or something."

"The candidate benefited from the income of this person, and it is relative information for the public to know more details about it," Lewis said.

Candidates and federal officeholders must include their spouses' income in forms filed each June 15.

Records show Sink and McBride planned to file jointly for the 2000 tax year as well, but changed their minds after the April 15, 2001, filing deadline, when McBride decided to run for governor.

The couple had paid the IRS $558,000 for taxes owed for 2000, but then they notified the IRS that they "have since decided to file returns as 'married filing separate.' "

The letter instructed the IRS to allocate $147,731 of their payment to cover McBride's tax bill. The remaining $410,269 was to cover Sink's bill, suggesting her taxable income again had outpaced his by more than 2-to-1.

Sink retired from Bank of America in 2000 as head of all Florida operations, and her high-powered career predated her 1984 marriage to McBride.

Tax records between 1992 and 1999 show she has been the family's main economic engine, and Sink has made at least $200,000 more than her husband every year since 1995. That doesn't include Bank of America stock.

In 1999, the couple claimed $71,830 in investment dividends, including $43,000 from Bank of America holdings. In 2000, without her, McBride's dividends totaled just $318. Last year, his dividends totaled just $1,459. He also gave $31,693 to charity.

In previous returns, the couple claimed their two children as dependents and showed they paid wages and unemployment taxes for a nanny. McBride's individual returns, however, claim no dependants or payments to the nanny, presumably because Sink's returns show that.

Gov. Bush said he doesn't believe McBride has gotten the scrutiny he deserves and said that's one reason he has been running hard-hitting TV ads against McBride.

"I did 23 hours of interviews" with a Florida newspaper in 1998 to explain his business dealings, Bush said, "and I'm expecting that the same treatment will occur for both of the potential Democratic candidates. Normally, those things happen a little bit sooner."

Nicole Harburger, Reno's spokeswoman, stopped short of asking Sink and McBride to make her tax returns public, but said: "One of the tenets of asking people for their vote is you need open.

"The challenge for Mr. McBride is that if you keep something hidden, people assume there's something to hide."

-Times staff writer Steve Bousquet contributed to this report.

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