Took No State Salary and Paid His Own Expenses as ECD Commissioner
Knoxville, TN – During his two years of public service as commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, Republican gubernatorial candidate Randy Boyd returned his state salary back to the state and personally paid for all of his own travel and other official expenses – including any use of state aircraft and all other expenses while recruiting businesses to Tennessee from around the world.
These and other details emerge from Boyd’s voluntary release of his federal and state income tax information for tax years 2015 and 2016 – the two years he worked for the state for free.
Boyd is the first and only gubernatorial candidate to release his actual 1040 income tax summary pages for his two years of state service in Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam’s cabinet – a practice Boyd said he intends to continue for each year he serves as governor.
“I’m not a professional politician. I’m a businessman. So I think it is a legitimate issue to see whether our elected officials are being good stewards of our tax dollars, and if they are personally enriching themselves in any way while serving in public office,” Boyd said.
Boyd’s income tax summary and 1040 pages for tax years 2015 and 2016 indicate that he and his wife Jenny earned $42,489,000 from their business investments in total income over the two years, while generating $30,176,000 in taxable income, paying more than $8,598,000 in combined federal and state taxes, and generously contributing over $10,300,000 to more than 100 charitable and non-profit causes across the state during those two years.
“Jenny and I have been blessed by the business success we’ve experienced here in Tennessee, and we want to do all we can now to help others and give back to those who have been so good to us,” Boyd said. “If I am honored by being elected governor, my intention is to once again take no state salary and to cover as many of my own expenses as I can, so we can use those funds in ways that better serve the people of our great state.”
Boyd, who literally started his successful business career selling electric cattle fencing out of the back of an old Dodge van, grew it into Radio Systems Corporation, an East Tennessee-based company that today produces over 4,600 pet products under brand names such as Invisible Fence, PetSafe, and SportDOG, with more than 700 employees and annual revenues of over $400 million.
During the two years that Boyd served as ECD commissioner, Tennessee experienced unprecedented economic growth – including a record-breaking 50,000 new jobs, more than $11 billion in new capital investment, and becoming number one in the nation for job growth in advanced industries, number one in the nation for foreign direct investment, number one in the nation for small business growth, and second among all states in the nation in the growth of median family incomes.
For more information about Randy Boyd and his campaign for Governor, please visit RandyBoyd.com — like him on Facebook at RandyBoydTN, or follow him on Twitter @RandyBoyd.
