Pluralistic: 17 Jun 2021


Today's links


A screengrab of the Tali Farhadian Weinstein For Manhattan DA website; Farhadian Weinstein's blouse is tiled with $100 bills.

Tali Farhadian Weinstein paid virtually no tax on millions and millions (permalink)

If you're still scraping your jaw off the floor after Propublica's monster story on tax-dodging among the ultra-wealthy, then buckle up, because they're not anywhere close to reporting out that leaked data.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/08/leona-helmsley-was-a-pioneer/#eat-the-rich

Today's story from The Secret IRS Files is about Tali Farhadian Weinstein, the ultrawealthy frontrunner candidate for the Democratic primary for DA of Manhattan.

https://www.propublica.org/article/leading-manhattan-da-candidate-has-repeatedly-paid-virtually-no-federal-income-taxes

Farhadian Weinstein and her husband – hedge fund manager Boaz Weinstein – earn stupendous amounts of money ($107m in 2011!) and pay virtually no tax.

"In 2017… she and her husband paid no federal income tax. In 2015 and 2013, they also paid no federal income tax. In 2014, she and her husband paid $6,584."

Farhadian Weinstein is the frontrunner in the primary in part because she's got millions and millions of dollars to spend on her campaign – most recently, she donated $8.2m to that campaign.

She's raised millions more, in large-dollar sums, from the finance sector, transforming the Manhattan DA primary into a game of moneyball in which she has outraised other candidates by 600-1,000%.

If she becomes Manhattan DA, one of the cases she'll manage is the investigation into Donald Trump's tax frauds.

Unlike Trump, Farhadian Weinstein isn't accused of breaking the law – merely exploiting its loopholes to pay an overall average tax rate of 12.6% from 2010-18.

That is a period in which her household saw hundreds of millions of dollars in income – and also a period in which she (like Jeff Bezos) claimed $5k in child tax credit for middle- and low-income families.

Farhadian Weinstein told Propublica in the years in which her family had "net income" they paid "more than 50% of our income in Federal, State and New York City tax." Propublica says that in the years in question, they paid 25.9% on millions, while the top rate was 35-39.6%.

Meanwhile, in years like 2013, the couple were able to declare no "net income" on earnings of $1.5m, in part by declaring $1m in "miscellaneous expenses" (Farhadian Weinstein declined to explain what these were).

Again, no one says she broke the law, but rather, that she exploited the law to get a deal that the voters of New York City couldn't hope to get for themselves, that in so doing, she amassed a vast fortune, and that she's using that fortune to buy high office.

(Image: Tali Farhadian Weinstein For Manhattan DA website, fair use, modified; Hloom Templates; CC BY, modified)


This day in history (permalink)

#15yrsago Spammer: I’ll buy MySpace profiles with more than 20k contacts http://www.brooklynskiclub.com/2006/06/easy-money-sell-your-friends.html

#15yrsago Psychology of bad probability estimation: why lottos and terrorists matter https://web.archive.org/web/20060627174933/http://server1.sxsw.com/2006/coverage/SXSW06.INT.20060311.DanielGilbert.mp3

#10yrsago What Lies Beneath the Clock Tower: steampunk choose-your-own-adventure https://memex.craphound.com/2011/06/17/what-lies-beneath-the-clock-tower-steampunk-choose-your-own-adventure/

#10yrsago Work song of Ghanian postal workers cancelling stamps https://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2005/12/work_song_from_.html

#5yrsago Hong Kong bookseller: I was forced to confess on China TV https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-china-36552672

#5yrsago Wisconsin Congresswoman: mandatory drug tests for anyone claiming $150K in itemized tax-deductions https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/16/gwen-moore-drug-test-rich-for-tax-deductions

#5yrsago $40,000/year private school sues school for low-income kids for $2M https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/06/16/can-school-lay-claim-commonwealth-its-name-back-bay-institution-believes-can/WHwiaaPEn04cIY6uxXjoiO/story.html

#5yrsago Oakland mayor denies firing police chief over officers who statutorily raped teen sex-worker https://eastbayexpress.com/badge-of-dishonor-top-oakland-police-department-officials-looked-away-as-east-bay-cops-sexually-exploited-and-trafficked-a-teenager-2-1/

#5yrsago Not robots: youth unemployment caused by late retirement, driven by pension precarity https://thebaffler.com/salvos/exit-planning-geoghegan

#5yrsago Your cable operator is spying on you and selling the data from your set-top box https://www.publicknowledge.org/press-release/public-knowledge-defends-consumer-privacy-in-set-top-box-data-complaint-to-fcc-ftc

#5yrsago 12 year old makes devastating video about anti-vaxxers, gets doxxed https://skepchick.org/2016/06/anti-vaxxers-dox-a-child-critic/

#5yrsago British Pro-EU MP murdered in the street by man shouting “Britain first!” https://theintercept.com/2016/06/16/british-referendum-campaign-suspended-killing-pro-europe-lawmaker-jo-cox/

#5yrsago The Orlando shooting, according to the Congressmen who took the most money from the NRA https://jezebel.com/heres-how-the-congressmen-who-have-gotten-the-most-cash-1782083985

#5yrsago Supreme Court ruling is a blow to copyright trolling business-model https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/06/attorneys-in-copyright-case-on-resold-textbooks-inch-closer-to-2m-payday/

#5yrsago Paramount tells judge that they’re still suing over Star Trek fan-film https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/paramount-says-star-trek-fan-903497/

#1yrago Hue and cry, posses, sheriffs https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/17/on-face-interaction/#before-cops

#1yrago Robots aren't stealing your job https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/17/on-face-interaction/#zombie-robots


Colophon (permalink)

Currently writing:

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  • A Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. PLANNING

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  • A post-GND utopian novel, "The Lost Cause." FINISHED

  • A cyberpunk noir thriller novel, "Red Team Blues." FINISHED

Currently reading: Analogia by George Dyson.

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  • The Shakedown, with Rebecca Giblin, nonfiction/business/politics, Beacon Press 2022

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