Won’t Write Off Rent Donations, Bradbury Pledges

Following up on his pledge to give away to charity the $639 a month he receives in federal housing funds, Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury said Tuesday that he will not use the donation as a tax write-off.

“As long as I receive the $639 a month, I will donate the entire amount of money to charity and not take a charitable tax deduction,” Bradbury said of the taxpayer dollars he gets for renting a house to his mother on his Ojai ranch.

Even if Bradbury were to use his donation as a tax write-off, the amount of his charitable contribution would still be greater than his actual tax breaks, said Bruce I. Hochman, one of the leading tax lawyers on the West Coast.

Bradbury, whose yearly salary is $131,804, would be passing up about a 35% to 40% tax break on his donation of $7,668 a year by not claiming a deduction, Hochman said.

“It would be more than a gesture” to give the money to charity under such circumstances, Hochman said.

Bradbury also said Tuesday that he does not declare his 77-year-old mother, Marie, as a dependent on his state and federal income tax forms, meaning that he does not receive additional tax breaks to help support her. To declare a dependent, an individual has to pay more than 50% of another person’s living expenses.

Marie Bradbury has lived for the past two years in a manufactured house on her son’s ranch, assessed last year at $558,000. Every month, she hands her son a $639 monthly rental payment--money she receives through her enrollment in the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Section 8 program for low-income tenants.

After an article in The Times on Sunday disclosed that Bradbury had been receiving taxpayer subsidies as a landlord to his mother, U.S. Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo said he may further tighten regulations to prevent “high-income landlords” from renting to relatives in the Section 8 program. As part of his review, Cuomo said HUD would establish guidelines defining “high income.”

In an interview Monday, Bradbury acknowledged that there are people in the county who may be more in need of the federal housing subsidies, referring to the roughly 6,900 people on waiting lists to get into the Section 8 program.

Although he defended his mother’s right to continue receiving low-income housing funds, Bradbury said he would make a $639-a-month charitable donation that would be split among several Ventura County nonprofit organizations that assist people in securing affordable housing.

On Tuesday, Bradbury said that if federal housing regulations were changed to exclude his mother from the subsidies, he would cease making the charitable donations.

“If I’m not getting the money, absolutely not,” said Bradbury, who has already collected about $15,000 as a landlord from the HUD program.

Bradbury said Tuesday that he would not be making any further comments about his involvement in the Section 8 program. HUD officials also said they would not make any additional comments at this time about Bradbury’s situation or about plans to tighten federal housing regulations.