Ted Cruz demands Joe Biden reveal the source of his $10M income in 2017

Senator Ted Cruz has called on President Joe Biden to release information about the “mysterious source” of $10 million he earned in 2017, the year his term as vice president ended.

After his tenure in the Obama White House ended, Biden and his wife Jill signed a lucrative multi-book deal worth $8 million and embarked on a speaking tour that grossed more than $4 million. dollars over several years.

However, revenue from the book and speech deal was funneled through two entities, known as S Corporations, shielding the money from certain taxes and concealing the ultimate source on the tax returns the Bidens filed. public.

Now Cruz, a Republican from Texas, is pointing out that lack of transparency as part of an FBI memo that Republicans say shows Biden was involved in a $5 million bribery scheme when he was vice president. president.

“You’re looking at a tax return with $10 million in cash from a mysterious source,” Cruz said Friday during his podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.

After his tenure in the Obama White House ended, Biden and his wife Jill signed a lucrative multi-book deal worth $8 million and embarked on a speaking tour that grossed millions. others.

Biden’s two S corporations, CelticCapri Corp and GiaCoppa Corp, reported revenues of $9,490,857 and $557,882 respectively in 2017, Biden’s first year as a private citizen after decades of federal election as a senator and vice president.

That money, which Biden says came from book and speech deals, was then given to Biden and his wife mostly as “distributions” rather than salary, according to CNBC.

When the money is channeled through an S corporation in this way, the recipient does not owe Social Security or Medicare taxes, and the source of the money is hidden.

Cruz claimed the ‘timing’ of the revenue injection was suspicious in light of unverified allegations of a $5 million ‘arrangement’ to swap money for policy decisions between the VP of the Biden era and a foreign national.

The claim is based on an FBI document viewed by members of Congress, which describes an interview with an informant.

The informant claimed that the CEO of Ukrainian gas company Burisma paid $5 million each to Joe Biden and his son Hunter to prevent an investigation by then-Ukrainian attorney general Viktor Shokin in 2015 or 2016.

Cruz remarked, “The whistleblower said that during his time as vice president, a senior Burisma executive personally offered him $5 million in cash in order to cut a corrupt deal and take official decisions for Burisma.

Biden’s family income rose from $400,000 in 2016 to $11 million in 2017 as a result of his book deal, which was valued at $8 million.

Biden’s 2017 tax return shows $10 million in payments to two S corporations. That money has long been reported as income from speeches and book deals, but the nature of the S corporations obscures the exact source of the money. money and protects it from certain taxes.

“The year he left the vice presidency in 2017, he reported over $10 million in income at two companies he and his wife started, and we know nothing, nothing about the source of that income. “

He speculated, “What if half of that $10 million was the $5 million payment to Burisma for the bribe?”

Cruz called on House Republicans to subpoena CelticCapri Corp and GiaCoppa Corp’s tax returns.

However, this would likely prove futile, as S corporation tax returns typically only reveal overall income and expenses, not the specific source of funds.

Biden isn’t the only politician enjoying the tax avoidance and privacy benefits of S corporations.

The tactic is known in tax circles as the “Gingrich-Edwards loophole” after Republican Newt Gingrich and Democrat John Edwards, both former presidential candidates who used it.

Joe and Jill Biden’s joint tax returns show the couple earned more than $15 million in the two years since leaving the Obama White House.

Biden and his wife signed a multi-book deal with Flatiron Books worth $8 million, according to Publishers Weekly.

Biden’s first book, an account of her son Beau’s death from cancer, briefly topped bestseller lists in 2017. Jill Biden also published a memoir in 2019.

Biden earned more than $4.29 million in speaking fees, according to public disclosures.

Joe Biden’s base speaking fee was reportedly $100,000 per speech, but his disclosures showed that while some appearances were priced as low as $40,000, others were as high as $190,000 for a talk at Drew University in New Jersey.

Jill Biden has earned at least $700,000 from her own speaking engagements, according to the revelations.

Joe Biden also won $540,000 as a professor and namesake of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania.