Vice President Kamala Harris has released 20 years of personal tax returns, stretching back to the earliest days of her political career.
While running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, she disclosed 15 returns — more than any of her rivals except President Biden, who has been releasing tax returns over the course of his long political career. Since her election as vice president, Harris has released another five returns in tandem with Biden’s annual disclosures.
The most important thing about Harris’s returns is the fact of their release — they are the personal demonstration of her public commitment to tax transparency. In terms of substance, however, the returns don’t hold many surprises.
Indeed, they seem to reflect a cautious regard for public perceptions. “She’s a little boring financially,” noted Megan Gorman, a wealth manager in San Francisco, in comments to The Wall Street Journal. “She has clearly taken great care to avoid anything controversial or overly risky.”
The Simple Years
Broadly speaking, Harris’s income and tax payments have risen substantially since she began her political ascent. But the increases have not been steady.
The first of two inflection points came in 2014, when she married Douglas Emhoff, then a partner at the DLA Piper law firm. The second came in 2022, as Harris settled into her job as vice president and Emhoff traded his partnership for a teaching job at Georgetown University.
Harris’s returns from the early 2000s tell a generally straightforward story. In 2004 she was elected district attorney in San Francisco; in 2010 she won the race to be California’s attorney general. In both positions, Harris earned salaries typical for public officials of the era. Her returns show little in the way of nonsalary income.
However, Harris’s income dropped considerably when she moved from being district attorney to being attorney general. As CNN reported in 2019: “Her election to the state office sliced about $43,000 off her salary. The state AG salary also dropped year after year, due to state-mandated pay cuts for state salaries in the wake of the financial crisis.”
Harris’s returns are the personal demonstration of her public commitment to tax transparency. Harris’s adjusted gross income during this period ranged from a high of $262,877 in 2010 before dropping to a low of $128,668 in 2013. During several of these premarriage years, she found herself paying the alternative minimum tax.
In general, Harris’s effective tax rate ranged from a low of 16.6% in 2004 to a high of 24.3% in 2010. During most years in this period, Harris’s returns show itemized deductions for taxes paid, mortgage interest, and charitable contributions. But for three years after moving to the lower-paying attorney general job (2011 through 2013), she reported no contributions.
Filing Jointly
In 2014, after her marriage to Emhoff, Harris saw her income and taxes jump dramatically. The year after reporting individual income of $128,668 in 2013, Harris reported joint income of $1,232,613 in 2014. The couple continued to report income of more than $1 million for the next seven years, with a high point in 2019 when their AGI reached $3,095,590. (Notably, Harris and Biden released their 2019 returns just hours before Biden met Donald Trump in the first presidential debate of 2020.)
Most of the couple’s income between 2014 and 2021 came from Emhoff’s job as an entertainment lawyer. But Harris has also earned significant income from her writing in recent years. She reportedly received a $300,000 advance for her memoir, The Truths We Hold. The book has continued to provide income to the couple in the years since its 2019 publication.
Harris did not structure her writing business as an S corporation, passing up the chance to reduce her payroll tax liability — in contrast with Biden, who did. No doubt Harris was trying to avoid the sort of blowback that Biden encountered.
After Harris took office as vice president, she and Emhoff saw their income fall precipitously. Emhoff left DLA Piper in August 2020, taking a teaching position at Georgetown University’s law school, where he has been paid something in the neighborhood of $170,000 annually — a fine sum, but nothing like his partnership compensation.
Harris has been a vocal supporter of tax disclosure by political officials and candidates. As a married couple, Harris and Emhoff have paid ETRs ranging from a low of 19.7% in 2023 to a high of 38.3% in 2019. The couple has claimed itemized deductions for state and local taxes, mortgage interest, and charitable contributions. Their donations have gone to a rather stable array of organizations, including the couple’s alma maters: Howard University; California State University, Northridge; and the University of Southern California. Harris and Emhoff have also donated regularly to the DC Central Kitchen. Other donations have been less regular, including $20 to Wikipedia in 2018 and $10,000 to UNICEF in 2016.
Supporting Transparency
Since her 2020 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, Harris has been a vocal supporter of tax disclosure by political officials and candidates. This position has done little to distinguish her from other Democrats; as a whole, the party has embraced transparency in a bid to embarrass Trump, who famously resisted personal tax disclosure as both a candidate and a sitting president.
At the time of her 2019 campaign release, the Harris campaign underscored the candidate’s commitment to disclosure. As one aide told CNN, Harris’s release made her “the most transparent candidate in the field when it comes to information about personal finances.” (Biden, who has been releasing tax returns for decades, might plausibly have objected to that characterization.)
In addition, Harris has supported legislation to make tax disclosure mandatory for presidents and vice presidents, as well as major-party candidates for both offices. She cosponsored the For the People Act of 2019, a later version of which passed the House in 2021. Both measures would have required candidates and officeholders to disclose personal tax returns.
Read the full article here
