The New York Times reports that Hillary has finally released her family tax returns, and they demonstrate that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet better start worrying about their spots on the Forbes 400 List of Richest Americans should Hillary win this coming November.
The Clintons’ charitable donations have not always matched their rhetoric, typically going only to their personal foundation, but their foundation’s disbursements have dramatically increased recently for some reason.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Bill Clinton released tax data Friday showing they earned $109 million over the last eight years, an ascent into the uppermost tier of American taxpayers that seemed unimaginable in 2001, when they left the White House with little money and facing millions in legal bills.
The bulk of their wealth has come from speaking and book-writing, which together account for almost $92 million, including a $15 million advance — larger than previously thought — from Mr. Clinton’s 2004 autobiography, “My Life.†The former president’s vigorous lecture schedule, where his speeches command upwards of $250,000, brought in almost $52 million.
During that time, the Clintons paid $33.8 million in federal taxes and claimed deductions for $10.2 million in charitable contributions. The contributions went to a family foundation run by the Clintons that has given away only about half of the money they put into it, and most of that was last year, after Mrs. Clinton declared her candidacy. …
Mr. Clinton has earned $29.6 million from two books, “My Life†and “Giving,†while Mrs. Clinton has collected $10.5 million from two books, “Living History†and “It Takes a Village.†She donated $1.1 million from book proceeds to charity.
Mr. Clinton last year earned $6.3 million from “Giving,†a book on philanthropy, and reported giving $1 million of that to charity. In the book, Mr. Clinton espouses his own formula for charitable donations, recommending that people give away 5 percent of their income to charitable causes. “If giving by the wealthiest Americans even approached these levels,†he wrote, “I’m convinced it would spark an enormous outpouring of contributions from Americans of more modest means.â€
The pace of the Clintons’ own charitable giving, which peaked last year at $3 million, has not always kept up with their income, and by at least one measure, has sometimes fallen short of the spirit of the 5 percent goal, which is to get money into the hands of charities that do good works.
In 2002, for instance, they reported income totaling $9.5 million and $115,000 in gifts to charity. In other years, they have given much larger amounts to their family foundation, but it has yet to disburse all of the money.
The Clintons took a tax deduction in 2004 for $2.5 million in charitable gifts, $2 million of which went to their family foundation, which as a tax-exempt nonprofit is considered a charity under the tax code. That same year, the foundation gave away just $221,000 to charitable groups, according to its tax return.
A representative of the Clintons said that when they and their foundation filed their 2007 tax returns, the records would show that all of the $3 million they gave to the foundation last year had been passed on to other charities. That will account for more than half of all the charitable donations that the foundation has made since 2001, according to a review of its tax returns.
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jawbone
The pace of the Clintons’ own charitable giving, which peaked last year at $3 million, has not always kept up with their income, and by at least one measure, has sometimes fallen short of the spirit of the 5 percent goal, which is to get money into the hands of charities that do good works.
In 2002, for instance, they reported income totaling $9.5 million and $115,000 in gifts to charity. In other years, they have given much larger amounts to their family foundation, but it has yet to disburse all of the money.
Since the Clintons would have had some extraordinary expenses immediately after leaving the WH (housing in two locations, for example, transportation, setting up their new households) and would have had to be at least in the process of paying off their legal debts, I’m not sure 2002’s low percentage of charitable giving is that remarkable.
Is there info on when they repaid their legal debts? Did they assist any of their WH assitants who were forced to incur legal debts? I’ve often wondered about that.
Also, once money goes into a foundation I would think it is not available to the donor for personal use…. The article and your comment seems to imply there was something wrong with the monies not being disbursed immediately. Is that true?
Or, does a foundation sometimes need time to get set up, determine best ways to disperse funds, and it may take a year or more to do so?
I know nothing about such things–my biggest “charitble donation,” which is stripping me of my life’s savings, is to Aetna Health Insurance–which went up 25% as of April 1st (funny how they choose April Fool’s Day to institute the new rates). I figure they need it to keep their CEO and upper executives in their $millions of annual compensations….
Thus, no way to have a foundation–and no understanding of how they would work. You seem to feel the Clintons are not managing their foundation well–is that the case? I did read they have only 1% going to overhead expenses, which the article said was extremely low for such foundations (some have up to 40% for overhead).
Jim Alban
According to wikipedia Bill Gates net Worth is approx 56 BILLION.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates
According to the statements above the Clinton’s made 109 million in 8 years. Paid 33 million in taxes and gave away 10 million. That leaves 65 million or approx 1/900 of Bill Gates wealth. So if it took 8 years to net 65 million, it should only take them (900*8) or 7200 years to catch up to Bill Gates. Pretty sure they won’t make it till then. Next time check your math before you shoot your mouth off.
No doubt the Clinton’s have done well but Bill and Warren have nothing to worry about. Makes me, and should you, wonder how much of the rest of the story stretches the truth.
But then again some people never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Let’s see if these facts make it in?
JDZ
You shouldn’t get so touchy over a little political hyperbole.
There is the notable difference that the corporations principally owned by those super-rich I compared to the Snopes family actually produced vast numbers of products used daily by countless millions of businesses and consumers.
The Clintons haven’t produced anything beyond scandals and political memoirs.
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