Hillary Clinton has called for increasing taxes on the wealthy and closing certain loopholes, but the candidate has made moves to shield part of the value of her own New York home from the estate tax. In 2014 Bloomberg News reported that according to federal financial disclosure records the Clinton’s created residence trusts in 2010, and then shifted ownership of their house in Chappaqua, New York, into the trusts in 2011. These trusts create tax advantages by giving a person the ability to exclude any increases in the house’s value from their taxable estate. “Under current law, estates worth less than $5.45 million per person, or $10.9 million per married couple, are exempt from the 40 percent estate tax.” Hillary Clinton proposes lowering that threshold to $3.5 million for individuals and $7 million for married couples.
See Clinton’s Estate-Tax Plan Doesn’t Address Her Own Tax Planning, Private Wealth, January 13, 2016.
Special thanks to Joel Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.
