Los Angeles Times - 07.09.2019

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It would seem that San
Francisco billionaire Tom
Steyer belonged in Ameri-
ca’s highest tax bracket in

2010. He and his wife Kat
      Taylor reported $149 million
      in taxable personal income,
      well beyond the $374,
      that required many other
      taxpayers to pay 35%.
      But the couple paid less
      than 26% in federal taxes,
      taking advantage of rates
      that are lower on investment
      income than they are on
      wages. They took nearly $
      million in itemized deduc-
      tions on $175 million in gross
      income.
      Steyer, a former hedge
      fund manager now running
      for the Democratic presi-
      dential nomination, has
      been a major beneficiary of
      tax breaks that favor the
      rich, according to tax re-
      turns that he recently made
      public. In a race against ri-
      vals who have put growing
      income inequality near the
      top of their 2020 agenda,
      that’s one of many potential
      sources of political trouble
      that emerged from the re-
      turns.
      Most glaring is what was
      missing.
      Like all U.S. taxpayers,
      Steyer and his wife were re-
      quired to identify every
      source of their 2010 invest-
      ment gains ($89 million),
      stock dividends ($16 million)
      and other income ($70 mil-
      lion).
      But when Steyer recently
      released nine years of federal
      and state tax returns in what
      he called an unprecedented
      display of transparency, he
      withheld nearly every page
      that showed where all the
      money came from. His cam-
      paign spokesman, Alberto
      Lammers, declined to say
      why.
      The vast scale of the
      omissions — the returns re-
      ferred to more than 1,000 at-
      tachments that were sent to
      tax authorities but not re-
      leased publicly — underlines
      some of the inherent chal-
      lenges of his long-shot can-

didacy.

“I think the enormous

gaps in his tax returns speak

to the enormous vulnerabil-

ity of a rich guy running on

taking money out of poli-

tics,” said Lawrence Jacobs,

a politics professor at the

University of Minnesota’s

Humphrey School of Public

Affairs.

Steyer, who has donated

more than $500 million to

candidates and political

causes over the last decade

and vowed to spend $100 mil-

lion on his presidential run,

argues that corporate mon-

ey has corrupted the na-

tion’s politics.

“We’ve had a corporate

takeover of our federal gov-

ernment,” he told Fox News

on Wednesday.

Jacobs, however, de-

scribed Steyer as “a poster

child for the way in which

money has infiltrated our

elections.”

“If he were to move out of

the very bottom of the candi-

date rankings in the polls, he

would find himself facing a

withering assault” from ri-

vals over his tax-return

redactions, Jacobs said.

“Frankly, the only reason

that Steyer hasn’t been

punched in the chops is that

the leading candidates hope

to be the beneficiaries of his

largesse in the coming

months.”

Steyer declined to re-

spond to the criticism.

Steyer “made a disclo-

sure that he felt was appro-

priate to give the public a

view into his income and

taxes paid,” Lammers said.

“Tom has been clear that he

invested in companies in all

sectors of the economy and

has never hid from that fact.

That’s why he ultimately de-

cided to leave his firm and fo-

cus on giving back.”

In 2012, Steyer stepped

down as the top manager of

Farallon Capital Manage-

ment, the San Francisco

hedge fund that he founded,

and became one of the big-

gest donors to Democratic

campaigns. He has spent

hundreds of millions of dol-

lars on the fight against cli-

mate change and television

commercials calling for the

impeachment of President

Trump.

When he voluntarily

posted his tax returns on-

line, Steyer did not disclose

that he was withholding ma-

jor portions of them.

The hidden parts detail

investments that yielded

hundreds of millions of dol-

lars for Steyer. The omis-

sions are especially signifi-

cant because he had previ-

ously voiced regrets about

making money in the fossil-

fuel and private-prison in-

dustries.

“It’s kind of like having

your cake and eating it too —

‘Oh, I’ve disclosed my tax re-

turns,’ but not really,” said

Meredith McGehee, the exe-

cutive director of Issue One,

a nonpartisan group that

works to reduce the influ-

ence of big money in politics.

“You want to get credit for it,

but you didn’t really do it.”

Among the things Stey-

er’s omissions kept from the

public were nearly all of the

$267 million in federal and

state tax deductions that he

and his wife took from 2009

to 2017.

One of the rare excep-

tions was for their 2010 dona-

tion of a 10-year-old GMC

Yukon sport utility vehicle to

a Ventura charity, Cars for

Causes. Its value was $4,700.

The returns hint at Stey-

er’s extensive use of offshore

tax havens, a practice long

criticized by many Demo-

crats.

While details of Steyer’s

offshore investments were

withheld, a memo released

by his campaign argued that

there was nothing improper

about that income.

“The fact that these are

reported on his taxes dem-

onstrates that the income

passed through directly to

Tom, was properly reported

to the IRS, and all appropri-

ate taxes were paid,” the

memo said.

In 2012, President Oba-

ma’s reelection campaign

pounded his Republican

challenger, Mitt Romney, for

refusing to release more

than two years of his tax re-

turns. Obama’s team por-

trayed Romney, who made a

fortune in private equity, as a

ruthless plutocrat who

made millions of dollars in

corporate takeovers that

put thousands of Americans

out of work.

Romney, whose federal

tax rate dipped as low as 13%

as he harvested the benefits

of loopholes available to

wealthy investors, had faced

similar attacks four years

earlier from Mike Huckabee,

a rival in the 2008 Republi-

can presidential contest.

Romney “looks like the guy

who fired you,” Huckabee

said.

“It was a very sharp criti-

cism that resonated with a

lot of working-class voters

inside the Republican pri-

mary electorate,” said Kevin

Madden, a top Romney ad-

visor in the 2008 and 2012

campaigns.

For now, Steyer’s Demo-

cratic opponents are for the

most part ignoring him.

When he entered the race,

Sens. Bernie Sanders of Ver-

mont and Elizabeth Warren

of Massachusetts each sug-

gested billionaires should

not be able to buy their way

into the White House.

Should Steyer’s plans for

heavy television advertising

succeed in turning him into a

more viable contender, the

concerns raised by ethics

watchdogs could be picked

up by his rivals and turned

into campaign attacks.

“If he’s trying to distin-

guish himself from others as

being more transparent,”

said Ann Ravel, a former

Democratic chairwoman of

the Federal Election Com-

mission, “it’s a little disin-

genuous if the actual infor-

mation about who’s behind

this money is not disclosed.”

Tax returns that are far from transparent

Lack of detail on Steyer’s wealth shows difficulties he faces in bid for Democratic nomination

By Michael Finnegan

TOM STEYER, campaigning in New Hampshire, has decried the influence of money in politics, but the

former hedge fund manager has been a major beneficiary of tax breaks that favor the rich.

CJ GuntherEPA/Shutterstock

■■■ ELECTION 2020 ■■■

that they support the new

changes under the deal.

“As the latest measles

outbreak threatens the

country’s elimination stat-

us, California acted to keep

children safe at school by

abolishing non-medical ex-

emptions,” Pan said in a

statement. “I appreciate the

Governor’s commitment to

sign SB 276 with amend-

ments contained in SB 714

that we both agree upon to

ensure we maintain the

community immunity

needed to protect our kids.”

SB 714, which is also writ-

ten by Pan, would invalidate

any medical exemption from

a doctor who has faced disci-

plinary action by the state

medical board.

Sears, who is currently

subject to a 35-month pro-

bation order issued by the

medical board in a vaccine

case that did not involve

school medical exemptions,

expressed disbelief over the

amendments released Fri-

day.

“[This bill would] mean

that any exemption written

by a doctor who has been

disciplined by the board for

any reason, even one unre-

lated to vaccination, will be

subject to revocation,” Sears

said. “So the hundreds of pa-

tients I’ve written exemp-

tions for over the past four

years after having a severe

vaccine reaction will lose

their exemptions. This

seems like a broad overreach

from a government that is

supposed to protect its

medically fragile children.”

Other opponents of SB

276 also said the new bill is

unacceptable.

“We are very disappoint-

ed in this effort to placate

the opposition and continue

to urge Gov. Newsom to veto

SB 276,” said Stefanie Fetzer

of the opposition group Par-

ents United for Kids.

The changes under SB

714 include Newsom’s pro-

posal to grandfather in all

existing medical exemp-

tions before Jan. 1, causing

concern among critics that

such a move would prompt a

rush for new exemptions.

However, Newsom’s

amendment contains a key

caveat: New medical exemp-

tions would be required

when a child enters kinder-

garten, seventh grade or

changes schools. By adding

that provision, permanent

medical exemptions would

no longer be valid through-

out a child’s K-12 education.

A similar approach was

used when the state elimi-

nated personal belief ex-

emptions in 2015 under an-

other bill by Pan that al-

lowed immunization waiv-

ers to remain valid until a

child reached kindergarten,

seventh grade or changed

schools.

Under the deal reached

Friday, temporary medical

exemptions that currently

allow a doctor to use his or

her discretion as to the

length of time they remain

valid would be limited to one

year.

SB 714 will also remove a

provision called for in SB 276

that would have required

doctors to certify that medi-

cal exemptions are accurate,

under penalty of perjury.

“We are confident that we

have legislation that will

close enormous loopholes in

California’s existing vacci-

nation law, protect commu-

nity immunity and crack

down on physicians who are

practicing outside the ac-

cepted standard of care,”

said Dr. David Aizuss, presi-

dent of the California Medi-

cal Assn., the lobbying arm

of doctors in the state.

The deal caps a chaotic

week for SB 276 that grew

more tense after Newsom

unexpectedly withdrew his

pledge to sign the bill, in-

stead floating a major over-

haul of the legislation that

his office called “technical —

but important.”

“These amendments

clarify legal and administra-

tive processes in SB 276 in

order to ensure medical pro-

viders, parents, school ad-

ministrators and public

health officials know the

rules of the road once it

takes effect,” Newsom’s

spokesman Nathan Click

said Friday in a statement.

“The Governor will sign SB

276 once the companion leg-

islation has passed both

houses.”

The bill comes amid the

worst measles outbreak in

more than 20 years, with

more than 1,200 people diag-

nosed with the disease this

year.

California has some of

the nation’s tightest child-

hood immunization laws, re-

quiring vaccinations to at-

tend public or private

schools, as well as day care.

A doctor can excuse a child,

either temporarily or per-

manently, from some or all

vaccinations if there is a

medical reason.

But the bill’s supporters

have alleged that some doc-

tors are profiting off unnec-

essary exemptions, prompt-

ing lawmakers to introduce

SB 276 to create state over-

sight of the process. Hun-

dreds of parents have pro-

tested the bill since it was in-

troduced this year, arguing

that it would interfere with

the doctor-patient relation-

ship and that the restric-

tions will make doctors hesi-

tant to write new medical ex-

emptions.

“Today’s agreement is a

victory for science over fear

and for sound public health

policy over conspiracy and

misinformation,” said Leah

Russin of Vaccinate Califor-

nia. “No parent should have

to make the choice to pull

their child from school to

protect them from vaccine-

preventable illness.”

Gov. Newsom, lawmaker

reach deal on vaccine bill

[Vaccine bill,from A1]

‘The Governor

will sign SB 276

once the

companion

legislation

[Senate Bill 714]

has passed both

houses.’

— Nathan Click,

spokesman for

Gov. Gavin Newsom