Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski said Friday he will release his tax returns by the end of August.
“We’re going to actually produce the return, the first couple pages of the return,” Stefanowski said Friday. “It’s going to include all of my income, family income, everything.”
Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont released a summary of three years of his taxes back in April.
Reporters were allowed to view the summary of the governor’s tax filings for 2018, 2019, and 2020 for 20 minutes. They were not given access to the full tax returns, including the various schedules which would have shown the gains and losses in capital gains. Lamont declined the $150,000 salary that comes with the position of governor so he had no earned income.
Lamont, who is the great-grandson of former J. P. Morgan & Co. chair Thomas W. Lamont, is married to Ann Huntress Lamont and files his taxes separately from his wife. The first lady, a founder and managing partner at Oak HC/FT, is likely much wealthier than her husband, according to a state Ethics Commission filing.
The summary of the tax returns show that Lamont’s adjusted gross income totale almost $26 million over the last three years. All of the money came from investment income, which is held in what is essentially a blind trust. That means Lamont does not know what companies he’s invested in, and does not make decisions about those investments.
There’s no requirement for gubernatorial candidates to release their tax returns, but it has become the norm in recent years.
Stefanowski said Lamont should also release his wife’s tax return since a company her firm invested in received a no-bid contract from the state of Connecticut at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“He didn’t include his family income in a normal world it’s fine when you gave Mrs. Lamont a $26 million no-bid contract with a company she owns, the taxpayers of Connecticut deserve to know how much money she made on it,” Stefanowski argued.
The contract with Sema-4, which was conducting COVID testing for the state, has since ended and the Lamonts say they had no input into awarding the contract. Mrs. Lamont’s private equity firm invested in the company.
Mrs. Lamont has said she didn’t earn any profit from the investment.
The governor’s assets are independently managed without his knowledge or involvement, in a manner that the state Ethics Office confirmed is “a functional equivalent to a blind trust.”
In 2018, Stefanowski released two years of his tax returns and not the five that Lamont released that year.
The filings, which were no more than Lamont shared, showed that Stefanowski and his wife earned about $16.5 million in 2016 and 2017 and paid about $6.68 million in federal and state taxes. The filings at the time did not include a list of charitable donations.
Stefanowski said he’s finishing up his 2021 returns.
“It’s going to be more comprehensive,” Stefanowski said of the tax returns he plans to release next month. “It’s not going to exclude part of my family income and you’re going to see the actual return. It will be five times as much disclosure as what he discussed.”
But as far as disclosing his client list for the past few years, Stefanowski said he would release what he could.
“I’ve got non-disclosure agreements with clients I sign with everyone. I’ll disclose as much as I legally can,” he added.
The Lamont campaign has been focused on Stefanowski’s client list.
“Bob claims confidentiality is the reason he won’t share who invested $10 million into making him governor of Connecticut, but hasn’t provided details about the confidentiality requirements he has with each client,” Jake Lewis, a spokesman for Lamont, said. “Did Bob engage in these closed-door dealings knowing he was going to run for office again? What did Bob promise he would do for them? Will he release the client list if he’s elected governor?”