Franklin Delano Roosevelt
When Franklin Delano Roosevelt moved into the White House, it wasn't customary for presidents to release their personal tax returns. For FDR, that was a good thing, because he wasn't the best at paying taxes. Thanks to the National Archive, we now know that Roosevelt was in the habit of minimizing his own tax payments at various points, both before and after he was elected president.
"During his first term in office, FDR repeatedly claimed that he was exempt from the high tax rates on personal income that Congress had enacted—and Roosevelt had approved—in the revenue acts of 1934 and 1935," Joseph Thorndike, a tax historian, writes for Tax Analysts. "In a series of letters to internal revenue officials, Roosevelt insisted that he could not be taxed at the heavy rates imposed on rich taxpayers during the mid-1930s. Article II, section 1 of the Constitution forbids any reduction in the president's compensation during his term in office, Roosevelt pointed out. Since the new rates enacted in 1934 and 1935 effectively reduced that compensation, they could not be applied to the president's salary." Eventually, in 1936, FDR started paying his taxes at the correct rate.
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8 of the Biggest Presidential Tax Scandals Throughout History, Source:https://www.rd.com/list/biggest-presidential-tax-scandals-throughout-history/
