Newly released tax documents show Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, a former cable television entrepreneur, earned more than $54 million last year, most of it from investment earnings.
It marks a big increase in income when compared to Lamont’s previous tax documents, released in April by his reelection campaign. Those showed his adjusted gross income for the first three of his four years in office had totaled nearly $26 million. The governor is not accepting the $150,000 state salary for governors.
Lamont, who files his taxes separately from his wife Annie, a successful venture capital consultant, had sought a filing extension from the IRS and didn’t release his 2021 returns until Friday. His reelection campaign allowed reporters to review cover sheets of Lamont’s federal and state tax returns, which showed the Democrat paid $12.8 million in federal taxes and $3.7 million in state taxes for the 2021 tax year.
The campaign also included a list of organizations that benefited from $1.6 million in charitable contributions distributed by the governor’s philanthropy fund. The list of groups includes the Boy Scouts of America, Council on Foreign Relations, Yale University and 4-CT, the independent, nonprofit charity Lamont helped to create during the early days of the pandemic.
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Taxes and personal income have been a major issue in this year’s governor’s race. Lamont’s Republican challenger, Bob Stefanowski, has called on the first-term governor to release Annie Lamont’s tax documents, noting how her venture capital firm had invested in a health care company that was contracted by the state of Connecticut to provide COVID-19 testing.
Meanwhile, Democrats took issue with Stefanowski for not releasing his taxes until September and for not providing a list of his business consulting clients. Stefanowski, who specializes in mergers and acquisitions, ended up acknowledging earlier this month he has done consulting work related to a proposed futuristic, green-energy city in Saudi Arabia, proposed by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
