Funeral, cremation and burial expensesĬampaign funds cannot be used to cover expenses related to deaths within the candidate’s family. The campaign may, however, pay for food and supplies for fundraising activities and campaign meetings (even when they take place in the candidate's home). The candidate cannot use campaign funds to pay for food purchased for daily consumption inside the home or supplies needed to maintain the household. Based on these rules, the following paragraphs discuss what kinds of expenses the campaign can and cannot pay for. The regulations list some expenses that are automatically considered to be personal use. For special elections that occur in odd-numbered years, payments may continue from the date that the special election is set until the date of the special election. Salary payments may continue until the date when the candidate is no longer considered a candidate for office or until the date of the general election or general election runoff. The first payment of salary shall be made no sooner than the filing deadline for access to the primary election ballot in the state in which the candidate is running for office, or, in those states that do not conduct primaries, on January 1 of each even-numbered year.Incumbent federal officeholders may not receive a salary payment from campaign funds and.Payments of salary from the committee must be made on a pro-rata basis (a candidate may not receive a whole year’s salary if he or she is not a candidate for an entire twelve-month period).Individuals who elect to receive a salary from their campaign committees must provide income tax records and additional proof of earnings from relevant years upon request from the Commission.The salary must not exceed the lesser of the minimum annual salary for the federal office sought or the earned income that candidate received during the year prior to becoming a candidate.The salary must be paid by the principal campaign committee.
The candidate may receive a salary from his or her campaign committee only under the following conditions: On special occasions, campaign funds may be used to purchase gifts or make donations of nominal value to persons other than the members of the candidate’s family. The sale or transfer of a campaign asset to either the candidate or a third party does not constitute personal use as long as the transaction is made at the fair market value. Note that the amount donated must have been used for purposes that do not personally benefit the candidate.
Gifts to charity are not considered personal use expenses as long as neither the candidate nor any member of the candidate's family receives compensation from the charitable organization before it has expended the entire amount donated. Liability for the information given being complete or correct.In addition to the "irrespective test," Commission regulations include other uses of funds that do not constitute personal use and thus are permissible uses of campaign funds. Using both wage and cost of living data, a recent study determined that Wyoming is the most affordable state in the U.S. For example, while the Big Mac Index suggests that a Big Mac is cheaper in Japan than the United States, this difference largely vanishes once factoring in the significantly lower average annual wages Japanese workers receive relative to their American counterparts. This simplicity is the downside of this methodology though, in that it does not consider how varying levels of consumption can impact quality of life.Īny determination of whether a place has a low cost of living cannot only look at how much basic items cost, but must also consider wage differentials between locations. Such a method allows for objective assessments by looking only at the total cost of those goods and/or services included in the index, ignoring all other factors. These indexes can also be for a fixed ‘basket’ of goods and services, with the consumer price index being the most prominent example. Such indices typically include prices for housing, food, health care, and other goods and services that are to be considered basic needs. The traditional method for quantifying the cost of living is to aggregate the prices of certain basic goods and/or services, and then compile indices that can be used to compare different locations and time periods.