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Thu 3 Apr, 2008 09:51 am
The Clinton Tax Returns: What Will They Reveal?
By BRIAN ROSS and AVNI PATEL
ABC News
April 3, 2008
An ABC News Review Has Found the Clintons Have Made More Than $50 Million Since Leaving the White House
Hillary Clinton has been pulling out all the stops to win the Democratic nomination for president -- but one: she still has not released her family's tax returns.
The campaign says they will release the documents sometime before April 15. Without them, many questions remain about how the Clintons made tens of millions of dollars -- and whether they used arcane tax loopholes available to the super-rich, an expert says. A Clinton campaign spokesman says the couple has paid all U.S. taxes at ordinary income tax rates.
An independent review by ABC News has found that since leaving the White House seven years ago, the senator and her former president husband have made well over $50 million, much of it from paid speeches made by Bill Clinton.
A review of Sen. Clinton's annual ethics filings found that her husband has earned $47 million in fees from more than 280 speeches he has made around the world.
Clinton's biggest patrons include New York-based investment firm Goldman Sachs, which paid him $650,000 for four speeches in recent years, and two foreign firms. Gold Services International, a Colombian-based event organizer, brought Clinton to Latin America in 2005 for four days of speeches, earning Clinton $800,000. Another company, Toronto-based Power Within, paid Clinton $650,000 for a series of motivational speeches in Canada in 2005.
Aides to the former president have said that his paid speeches are an efficient way for him to make money and devote more of his time to charitable work.
The annual disclosures do not require Sen. Clinton to fully report her husband's income, which obscures the picture of how much the former president has made in his business dealings with longtime friends and fundraisers.
Read Sen. Clinton's latest disclosure form.
For example, an examination of the records reveals her husband is a partner in an investment fund, Yucaipa Global Partnership, registered in the Cayman Islands, and was paid "guaranteed payments to partner." Sen. Clinton's forms do not list the exact amount of her husband's payments, only that they totaled more than $1,000 over four years.
"No average person has interest and funds in the Cayman Islands. This is all the above-average, non-tax-paying, super rich," said Jack Blum, an attorney and leading expert on offshore tax havens.
Jay Carson, a spokesperson for Sen. Clinton's presidential campaign, said the Yucaipa global fund was organized in the Cayman Islands to attract foreign investors. "Each investor or partner in the fund pays the taxes they owe in their home country. For U.S. citizens like Bill Clinton, that means he pays U.S. taxes on his income from this fund, which he does," said Carson.
The exact amount he has made from his involvement in the fund remains undisclosed.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the former president stands to receive a payout of around $20 million for his role as an adviser to billionairel Ron Burkle's investment funds.
Sen. Clinton's presidential campaign disputes that figure. "Contrary to published reports, neither the level of his compensation for his advisory role, nor the value of his partnership share in the Yucaipa Global Fund upon his exit, has been determined," Carson said.
Bill Clinton has also faced scrutiny for his business dealings with friend and fundraiser Vinod Gupta, who has reportedly paid him undisclosed consulting fees and provided him use of his corporate jet.
Shareholders in Gupta's data collection company filed a lawsuit in 2007 accusing Gupta of using the company's resources to ingratiate himself with Clinton and other personal friends.
A court later dismissed the lawsuit. Gupta has said it was a legitimate business expense to hire Clinton. Contacted by phone Wednesday, a lawyer for Gupta declined to disclose the amount his client had paid Clinton.
Why does it matter about a candidates tax return?
That tells us nothing about how they will govern.
I find it interesting that anyone actually cares about how much money she has earned, and I do wonder why anyone wants to see someone elses tax returns.
Will all of you demanding that she release her tax returns also let all of us examine yours?
After all, it makes sense that you do what you are demanding her to do.
I guess I should run for president... I have about the same ideas as Obama or Hillary.... and I haven't made millions of dollars so I must not be corrupt....
mysteryman wrote:Why does it matter about a candidates tax return?
That tells us nothing about how they will govern.
I find it interesting that anyone actually cares about how much money she has earned, and I do wonder why anyone wants to see someone elses tax returns.
You wouldn't find it to be of interest if you found that someone running for office was using tax loopholes that they have publicly condemned? I would contend that someone who is publicly against something but uses it to their own advantage anyway displays some very questionable ethics - something that can tell us about how they would govern.
Quote:Will all of you demanding that she release her tax returns also let all of us examine yours?
After all, it makes sense that you do what you are demanding her to do.
I haven't seen anyone demand that sheso anything as of yet. She's stated she would release them. Shouldn't people be able to expect her to remain true to her own words?
what I would like to know is who in the history of this country... maybe in the world.... can anyone site who has governed or for that matter lived their life 100% ethically?
I'd also like to know, just for my own information and entertainment... how many people think anyone ever will?
fishin wrote:You wouldn't find it to be of interest if you found that someone running for office was using tax loopholes that they have publicly condemned? I would contend that someone who is publicly against something but uses it to their own advantage anyway displays some very questionable ethics - something that can tell us about how they would govern
I disagree. I think the recently passes tax rebate is the wrong solution for the economy and we should be accelerating infrastructure investement instead, but if Uncle Sam sends me a check, I will cash it. If a politician wants to say "I don't like the current rules" while still playing by them, that's fine by me.
I really don't care to see the Clinton's tax returns. There are clearly some transactions in there the Clinton's don't want us to see, but unless they are illegal, I think they are entitled to their privacy.
engineer wrote:fishin wrote:You wouldn't find it to be of interest if you found that someone running for office was using tax loopholes that they have publicly condemned? I would contend that someone who is publicly against something but uses it to their own advantage anyway displays some very questionable ethics - something that can tell us about how they would govern
I disagree. I think the recently passes tax rebate is the wrong solution for the economy and we should be accelerating infrastructure investement instead, but if Uncle Sam sends me a check, I will cash it. If a politician wants to say "I don't like the current rules" while still playing by them, that's fine by me.
But it's a matter of degree, isn't it? What if you found out that they've managed to hide all their income and not only didn't pay any income taxes at all and got the earned income credit? (all highly unlikely of course...) Clinton, in particular, has been at the forefront of the "roll back the tax breaks for the rich" set. If they've been hiding assests in off shore acocunts to avoid paying at the current tax levels then any claim that she her policies are attempts to be "fair" with the average taxpayer is simply hot air and she looses any credibility.
Quote:I really don't care to see the Clinton's tax returns. There are clearly some transactions in there the Clinton's don't want us to see, but unless they are illegal, I think they are entitled to their privacy.
I fully agree that they are entitled to their privacy. If she wants to maintain that however, she shouldn't have promised to release her returns.
mysteryman wrote: But now you are speculating.
It sounds like you are saying that "we dont know if she did anything wrong, so we wanna investigate and see what we can find".
I didn't speculate at all. I couldn't care less what her tax returns show. There isn't any way in hell I'll vote for her anyway. If I had bene speculating I would have posted what I thought her returns will reveal.
What I did do is point out that there are differences between getting the same treatment everyone else gets (which is what she has been publicly advocating for) and saying one thing while doing another. Whether her returns will show if she's done that or not is totally up in the air to everyone but her.
Quote:I agree, if she said she would, then she should.
But, WHY is it so inportant that any candidates taxes become open to public scrutiny?
Are you so worried about how successful or rich they might be?
Also, why should Bill's taxes be made public?
He isnt running for anything.
She isn't required to make his income info public to meet her own promise. She can amend all of her returns to change her status to "Married filing seperately" just like anyone else can. SHE is the one making the choice on what will be divulged. I guess you should address your question to her.
As for why it is or isn't important that any politican divulge their tax returns - IMO, it isn't. The "important" issue to me is whether or not they do what they say they'll do. If she (or anyone else) promised to release returns and they don't then what does that say for anything else they've said during their campaigns?
The entire process of campaigning is making promises. If we (the general public) are to assume up front that every promise made isn't genuine to begin with (which the cynics would say is the case anyway...) then why bother supporting anyone?
I don't give a damn if my president makes millions on the side running swan f*cking porn specialty sites in thailand as long as they do a good and efficient job of running my country, giving it's citizens healthcare, education, safe borders and efficient infrastructure...
Bi-Polar Bear wrote:I don't give a damn if my president makes millions on the side running swan f*cking porn specialty sites in thailand as long as they do a good and efficient job of running my country, giving it's citizens healthcare, education, safe borders and efficient infrastructure...
Thats just gross!!!
Now geese, thats a different story...
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