The following rich liberals have all used legal tax shelters to legally lower their taxes

The following rich liberals have all used legal tax shelters to legally lower their taxes:



Debbie Wasserman Schultz

The Weekly Standard reports:

Disclosure forms reveal that Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a member of Congress from Florida, previously held funds with investments in Swiss banks, foreign drug companies, and the state bank of India. This revelation comes mere days after the Democratic chair attacked presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for holding money in Swiss bank accounts in the past.

Nancy Pelosi

The Daily Caller reports:

According to Pelosi’s 2011 financial disclosure statement, the Democratic House Minority Leader received between $1 million and $5 million in partnership income from ”Matthews International Capital Management LLC,” a group that emphasizes that it has a “A Singular Focus on Investing in Asia.”A quick trip to the company website reveals a featured post extolling the virtues of outsourcing.

Valerie Jarrett

fireandreamitchell.com reports:

Top Obama adviser and BFF Valerie Jarrett has a line of credit from a Bermuda insurance company valued between $100,000 and a quarter of a million dollars.

Barack Obama

Fox News reports:

President Obama and his wife, Michele, gave a total of $48,000 in tax-free gifts to their daughters, according to tax records made public on Friday.The president and his wife separately gave each daughter a $12,000 gift under a section of the federal tax code that exempts such donations from federal taxes.There is nothing illegal about the president’s taking advantage of this tax shelter, but it does raise eyebrows given that he has lamented the myriad tax exemptions used by the wealthy—“millionaires and billionaires” like himself—to pay less in taxes.

Noam Chomsky

The Hoover Institution reports:

One of the most persistent themes in Noam Chomsky’s work has been class warfare. He has frequently lashed out against the “massive use of tax havens to shift the burden to the general population and away from the rich” and criticized the concentration of wealth in “trusts” by the wealthiest 1 percent. The American tax code is rigged with “complicated devices for ensuring that the poor—like 80 percent of the population—pay off the rich.”

But trusts can’t be all bad. After all, Chomsky, with a net worth north of $2,000,000, decided to create one for himself. A few years back he went to Boston’s venerable white-shoe law firm, Palmer and Dodge, and, with the help of a tax attorney specializing in “income-tax planning,” set up an irrevocable trust to protect his assets from Uncle Sam. He named his tax attorney (every socialist radical needs one!) and a daughter as trustees. To the Diane Chomsky Irrevocable Trust (named for another daughter) he has assigned the copyright of several of his books, including multiple international editions.

Chomsky favors the estate tax and massive income redistribution—just not the redistribution of his income. No reason to let radical politics get in the way of sound estate planning.

When I challenged Chomsky about his trust, he suddenly started to sound very bourgeois: “I don’t apologize for putting aside money for my children and grandchildren,” he wrote in one e-mail. Chomsky offered no explanation for why he condemns others who are equally proud of their provision for their children and who try to protect their assets from Uncle Sam.



John Kerry

The Boston Globe reports:

Documents obtained by the Globe detail John Kerry’s 1983 investment of between $25,000 and $30,000 in offshore companies registered in the Cayman Islands. The document below, signed by Kerry, shows his pledge to purchase 2,470 shares of Peabody Commodities Trading Corp. through Sytel Traders, registered in the Caymans.

Barney Frank

National Review reports:

When Massachusetts cut its top tax rate to 5.3 percent in 2001, it let guilty liberals pay the old 5.85 percent rate if they wished… Pro-tax U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.) spurned the higher rate. “No, I won’t” pay some $800 extra, Frank told Boston radio host Howie Carr in April 2003.

Michael Moore

ihatethemedia.com reports:

Moore’s most recent effort, Capitalism: A Love Story, took aim at businesses that used shelters to avoid paying taxes and took government bailouts during the market crash.

The thing is, Moore used similar tactics, taking advantage of a Michigan tax break to fund the making of his film–which raked in millions, by the way. Michigan taxpayers–already hit hard with the collapsing auto industry–were left holding the funny money bag for that one.

Bill Clinton

USA Today reports:

Former president Bill Clinton once made public a tax return on which he deducted $2 apiece for donated underwear.