Hillary Clinton releases eight years of tax returns
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her husband former President Bill Clinton made almost $28 million last year and paid about $10 million or 36% of that in federal taxes, according to tax returns her campaign released Friday.
The Clinton campaign made public eight years of returns — covering 2007 to 2014, essentially filling in the public record since she ran for president unsuccessfully eight years ago. As a result of the earlier campaign and her husband’s political career, the couple’s returns back to 1977 are now public.
The returns do show some financial tactics that could draw criticism. They reveal that Hillary Clinton used a limited liability company — ZFS Holdings, LLC — to receive her speech income and royalties from her books. Delaware state records show ZFS was created in February, 2013, just eight days after Clinton stepped down as secretary of state and began making paid speeches.
Bill Clinton’s use of a similar entity for his speech and business income drew press attention earlier this year because of concern about so-called “shell” or “pass-through” companies being used to shield income from taxation.
The Clintons gave just over $3 million to charity in 2014, about 11 percent of their overall income. Almost all of it was directed into a family foundation which doles out money to other charities and is separate from the better-known Clinton Foundation, a global charity they started.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign hopes that the charitable giving compares favorably with that of the top establishment candidate on the Republican side, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. In 2013, he and wife Columba gave roughly 1.5 percent to charity — $110, 616 out of total income of nearly $7.3 million. They took an extension on filing their taxes this year and did not do so by the April 15 deadline, Bush campaign officials said.
The Clintons’ returns also provide specific details on how much income they derived from various sources, going beyond previously disclosed information about their speech income.
The 2014 return shows Clinton pulled in almost $10.5 million in speaking fees and about $5.7 million in royalties, chiefly for her book “Hard Choices,” published that year. That’s atop a $3 million advance she scored from Simon & Schuster in 2013, the tax forms show
Bill Clinton made $2.1 million in the last calendar year from his consulting deal with GEMS Education and $4.3 million from Laureate Education, while bringing in $9.7 million in speech income, according to the most recent return.
On Friday, Hillary Clinton’s campaign also disclosed a breakdown of paid Clinton speeches in 2013, showing that Bill and Hillary got a collective $5.8 million for speeches to banks, investment firms, private equity funds, asset management companies, bank lobbies and the like. Bill Clinton brought in a total of $13.1 million in speech fees that year, while Hillary was paid about $9.7 million.
Hillary Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon boasted on Twitter that the disclosures about speeches and business dealings were more detailed than Bush’s. “Clinton returns break out all underlying sources of both her and her husband’s business income. Unlike fmr FL gov did with his LLC,” Fallon wrote.
In a statement accompanying the returns released Friday, Clinton seemed to try to play down the multi-million-dollar figures by stressing her humble roots and her intention to overhaul the tax code.
“We’ve come a long way from my days going door-to-door for the Children’s Defense Fund and earning $16,450 as a young law professor in Arkansas – and we owe it to the opportunities America provides,” Clinton said. “I want more Americans to have the chance to work hard and get ahead, just like we did. And reforming the tax code can help.”
Clinton’s statement also aggregated her taxes paid over the eight-year-period. The couple’s total federal tax bill since 2007 was $43,885,310 in addition to $13,625,777 in taxes paid at the state and local level.
Their total charitable donations since 2007 came to nearly $15 million, although that figure does not appear to include speaking fees they directed to the Clinton Foundation, which is operated as a charity. Clinton aides say those speeches were delivered on behalf of the foundation, so related payments are not considered income for the Clintons despite the fact that the fees pass through their speakers’ bureau and the charitable speeches are often indistinguishable from the paid ones.
The foundation-funding speeches brought in at least $12 million and perhaps more than $24 million, according to a voluntary disclosure the foundation released in May after questions and press stories about the payments. The payments were not included in the financial disclosure Clinton filed in May as a presidential candidate or in earlier ones she filed as secretary of state. Since the payments were not income to the Clintons, they also cannot deduct them on their tax returns.
Presidential candidates are not required by law to make their tax returns public, but most major-party contenders have done so in recent decades. Candidates are required to file personal financial disclosures with the Federal Election Commission.which details most of their financial holdings, but does not provide exact figures for most income types.
The return appeared to show Bill Clinton was claiming use of 25 percent of the Chappaqua, N.Y., house for business purposes but a Clinton campaign spokesman said the claim actually applied to a quarter of a renovated barn on the property, not the residence.
The tax returns and details on the Clintons’ speech income were part of an avalanche of Clinton-related records made public Friday, a traditional day for political figures to release information they hope won’t garner huge press attention. Clinton’s campaign also released a report on her health Friday.
The documents came as political action committees, including super PACs supporting presidential candidates, filed spending reports with the Federal Election Commission. And, in accordance with a court-mandated schedule, the State Department released more than 1,000 emails from the private account Clinton used as secretary of state.
