By Andrea Mitchell and the NBC News Investigative Unit
Hillary and Bill Clintons' wealth has skyrocketed to more than $20 million last year, a staggering 5,600 percent increase since President Clinton left the White House, according to their newly released tax records.
In Clinton’s last full year in office, 2000, he and Mrs. Clinton earned $357,026. Last year, their estimated total income was $20.4 million. That is an increase of more than 5,600 percent.
Most of the Clintons’ newfound wealth comes from lucrative speeches and books. In the seven years since the Clintons left the White House, President Clinton has earned $51.8 million in speeches around the globe. The president’s book royalties total $29.5 million for that same period, and Senator Clinton’s book payments total $10.4 million, the Clinton campaign reported today.
It’s a remarkable turnaround for a couple that faced $12 million in legal fees when they left the White House, in the wake of the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky scandals. Since that time, the new records show, the Clintons have raked in more than $109 million in total gross income--and made charitable contributions of more than $10 million.
Much of the Clintons’ earnings -- $15 million in total -- come from President Clinton’s partnership with his friend, supermarket magnate Ron Burkle, and his Yucaipa companies. Burkle and his firms invested heavily in Dubai, despite Hillary Clinton’s criticism of a deal to grant Dubai ownership of several prominent American ports. Tonight the Clinton campaign said: “As has been previously reported, President Clinton is a partner in the Yucaipa Global Partnership Fund, an international private equity investment fund investing in private international companies. It seeks international investors and several of the companies in which it has invested are on Senator Clinton's financial disclosure forms that were filed in 2007.”
The Clinton campaign today also revealed that President Clinton earned a total of $2.9 million from a compensation agreement with InfoUSA, an Omaha-based data processing and marketing firm run by Vinod Gupta. The deal created controversy when it was reported that InfoUSA sold data lists to a third party that were used by fraudulent telemarketers.
Several of the older tax returns are signed and dated on the same day. For example, the Clintons’ 2004 and 2005 returns are both signed on October 14, 2007. Today, the campaign explained that several of the tax returns released today were amended, and thus were signed at later dates. Sen. Clinton’s staff blamed the couple’s tax preparers for making several errors.
A campaign spokesman said: “The Clintons amended their returns in 2003, 2004, and 2005. In 2003 the Clintons amended their return because they received a Form 1099-INT after the April 15, 2004 due date of their 2003 income tax returns. In 2004 the Clintons had to amend their filings twice. The first amended return was based on an amended letter from the Blind Trust received after the original return was filed. The second amended return was based on a clerical error that was discovered after the returns were filed. There was a math error in the original return regarding deductions, and when a new tax preparer came on board, he discovered the error and amended the return to correct it. In 2005 the Clintons had to amend their return because certain deductions were omitted from Schedule C because of a clerical error on the part of the Clintons' accountant. When a new tax preparer came on board, he discovered the error and amended the return to correct it.”
NBC News showed the tax returns to Tom Ochsenschlager, the Vice President of Taxation at the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He has been a CPA for three decades, and said all the amended returns and CPA errors stood out. “That’s unusual,” Ochsenschlager said.
In general, Ochsenschlager said the Clinton’s tax returns showed a “pretty conservative” approach. “I didn’t see anything that really raised my eyebrows,” he said. “They didn’t really take advantage of a lot of things they could have.”
One return that did catch Ochsenschlager’s eye was for the tax year 2003, when the Clintons took a hefty deduction for the business use of their home offices. President Clinton claimed $94,551 in expenses for cleaning and maintenance of his home office that year, and his wife claimed $52,889 for hers. The Clintons each got a tax deduction of about 10 percent of those amounts, Ochsenschlager said. “It seems very high. That’s one area where they may have been very aggressive,” the CPA added.
--With reporting assistance from Jim Popkin, Doug Adams, Rich Gardella, Aram Roston and Adam Verdugo.
