Hillary Transferred $150K in Campaign Money to LLC That Manages Some of Her Personal Income
The company is located in Delaware, which allows Hillary to take advantage of tax loopholes, which she supposedly hates.
The Washington Free Beacon has reported that failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton transferred $150,000 in campaign money to a limited liability company (LLC) in Delaware that manages her personal income from speaking engagements and book sales.
Delaware is known as a tax haven.
Hillary Transfers Money
From the Free Beacon:
Clinton registered ZFS Holdings LLC, a Delaware-based LLC, on Feb. 8, 2013, just days after leaving the State Department, records filed with the Delaware Division of Corporations show. Later, in April 2014, paperwork was filed with New York State’s Department of State.
ZFS’s listed agent on its Delaware forms is the Corporation Trust Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Wolters Kluwer, a Netherlands-based global company that provides services to legal, business, tax, accounting, finance, audit, risk, compliance, and healthcare clients.
The agent’s address, which is used by more than 285,000 companies, including Trump business entities, is known as an epicenter of U.S. corporate secrecy.
Hillary’s former campaign committee Hillary for America began to send payments to ZFS six months after she lost the election and marked all payments as rent.
The first occurred in May 2017 at $32,929.28. Seven payments after that initial payment came in between $9,617.87 to $36,369.39. The latest payment happened on March 15 for $20,822.92.
So why is this a problem? Well, the Center for Responsive Politics explained what politicians can do with unused campaign cash. For instance, the “politicians are not required to shut down their committees and can keep them running indefinitely.” The center wrote that they can “do this to pay off campaign debt, or, to keep their war chest full if they were to ever seek office again.”
After politicians pay down any debt they owe, “money is often spent to ‘wind down’ the committee and pay off any office expenses.” There are guidelines for unused cash (emphasis mine):
“For those who still have cash on hand, the FEC sets guidelines regarding how candidates’ committees may spend campaign funds,” they continue. “Other than the prohibition on personal use, there are few limitations. Punishments for violating the prohibition on personal use range from substantial fines to possible prison time.”
Former politicians and candidates may use unused funds for the likes of donating money to a recognized charity, contributing to the campaign committees of other politicians, giving to a federal, state, or local party activity, or disbursements for winding down costs.
Cleta Mitchell, a partner at Foley & Lardner LLP, spoke to the Free Beacon. Once again, emphasis is mine:
“The only disbursements allowed for the Clinton or any other losing campaign are for winding down the campaign,” Cleta Mitchell, a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Foley & Lardner LLP, told the Washington Free Beacon. “So the question is whether this is really for rent or whether the payments are to this entity for other types of work for Hillary, which would be personal use if it isn’t specifically tied to the winding down of the campaign.”
“Personal use is illegal under federal campaign finance law,” Mitchell said. “There are a number of questions that need to be answered to ensure that the campaign is using leftover campaign funds for a legally, permissible purpose.”
Avoiding Tax Laws?
So it seems she’s skirting finance laws. But Hillary is also a liberal, which means she wants higher taxes and for the rich to pay their “fair share”, or at least that’s what she claims. However, using this company allows Hillary to take advantage of loopholes. The Guardian reported in April 2016:
Clinton, who has repeatedly promised that as president she will crack down on “outrageous tax havens and loopholes that super-rich people across the world are exploiting in Panama and elsewhere”, collected more than $16m in public speaking fees and book royalties in 2014 through the doors of 1209, according to the Clintons’ tax return.
Just eight days after stepping down as secretary of state in February 2013, Clinton registered ZFS Holdings LLC at CTC’s offices. Bill Clinton set up WJC LLC, a vehicle to collect his consultation fees, at the same address in 2008.
A spokesman for Clinton said: “ZFS was set up when Secretary Clinton left the State Department as an entity to manage her book and speaking income. No federal, state, or local taxes were saved by the Clintons as a result of this structure.”
I call BS. After all, companies like Apple, Coca-Cola, and Wal-Mart have used ZFS so they can register in Delaware, which allows them to “take advantage of strict corporate secrecy rules, business-friendly courts and the ‘Delaware loophole’, which can allow companies to legally shift earnings from other states to Delaware, where they are not taxed on non-physical incomes generated outside of the state.”
The Guardian stated that Delaware’s tax laws “have cost other states more than $9bn in lost taxes over the past decades.” This has led to people calling the state “one of the world’s biggest havens for tax avoidance and evasion.”
Look, if you can avoid taxes, I say go for it. I’m a libertarian and I hate taxes. I just cannot stand the hypocrisy showcased by Hillary.
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Laws?
Guidelines?
Don’t be silly. Those are for the “little people”.
What she meant was she will go after everyone else for dodging taxes and carve out a nice little niche for her and her allies.
Mary – in the 3rd from last paragraph, I think you have used “ZFS” which is Clinton’s LLC when you possibly meant the agent company.
” Corporation Trust Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Wolters Kluwer, a Netherlands-based global company that provides services to legal, business, tax, accounting, finance, audit, risk, compliance, and healthcare clients.
The agent’s address, which is used by more than 285,000 companies, including Trump business entities, is known as an epicenter of U.S. corporate secrecy.”
The way the sentence is written, Clinton’s LLC is accepting money from Apple, etc to register in DE. But, who knows, Maybe Clinton has added a new line of business to get the money.
Oops, I think you just explained Islam, as well.
Sister, I don’t know if you know just how true your words are.
Surah 9:28-29
“O you who have believed, indeed the polytheists are unclean, so let them not approach al-Masjid al-Haram after this, their [final] year. And if you fear privation, Allah will enrich you from His bounty if He wills. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Wise. Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture – [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled.”
According to the Muslims’ own histories Muhammad forbade the pagans from worshiping at the Kaaba (he didn’t change anything about the pagan temple or pagan practices of the Hajj except destroying all the idols except the moon god’s). The Meccans made most of their living by trading with and selling to the pagan pilgrims. So Muhammad said, “don’t worry about it, we’ll just plunder the Christians and Jews (those who were given the scripture).”
If they converted to Islam the Muslims would collect the Zakat from them; tithes that Muslims owe their Kalifa. If they refused to convert but wanted to ransom their lives they’d pay the even higher tax called the jizya. Either way money would start flowing into Mecca.
The plan was to live by armed robbery and extortion.
And according to the medieval Islamic historian at-Tabari Muhammad then raided into nearby Roman villages (now we call them Byzantines but the word didn’t exist then, as the people of the Eastern empire called themselves Romans although they did so in Greek; Romaîoi), the inhabitants of which had of course done nothing to the Muslims.
(Darussalam version) Sahih al Bukhari – Book of Fighting for the Cause of Allah (Jihaad)
(88) Chapter: What is said regarding spears
“Narrated Ibn ‘Umar that the Prophet said, ‘My livelihood is under the shade of my spear,(1) and he who disobeys my orders will be humiliated by paying Jizya’
Footnote: (1) ‘Under the shade of my spear’ means ‘from war booty'”
No truer words, Valerie.
Clinton, who has repeatedly promised that as president she will crack down on “outrageous tax havens and loopholes that super-rich people across the world are exploiting in Panama and elsewhere”
That promise was conditioned on her being elected President. The customers didn’t elect her President, so she has no obligation to come through on her promise.
Horrible Hillary is the worst, but this isn’t one of the reasons why. Nobody has a legal or ethical obligation to arrange his affairs so as to maximize his taxes. Ditto Delaware being an epicenter of tax avoidance and evasion. Avoiding tax is just good business. And evasion is a crime. Delaware corporate tax laws are perfectly legal. They’re not even particularly shady. They just don’t maximize revenue to other states.
We may be missing the point here. Rent is normally a fixed amount. It doesn’t vary month to month. It stays the same because the physical place you are renting tends to stay the same too and because generally there is a lease which fixes the amount for a period of time.
In the absence of a lease, the payments still tend to be constant, because if the landlord raises rates unreasonably or unpredictably, someone with no lease can just walk away.
It doesn’t matter if the place (or sometimes equipment but that doesn’t even make sense for a dead political campaign) is in Delaware or Timbuktu. The way rent operates is the way rent operates.
In other words, these payments don’t really look like rent. Therefore, there is some kind of fraud going on. That should be investigated and prosecuted.
Hey Irv, I read your post after I wrote mine. You are very perceptive about some slush fund payment with “rent” in the memo line.
I agree with your analysis.
However, postulate a “structured” lease agreement where rents are paid in clumps, rather than in a constant stream.
Just playing devil’s advocate here. I think this is just another Hellary fraud. I hope it’s investigated by BOTH state and federal prosecutors. AND THEN I hope it’s prosecuted!
I can’t square this circle.
“After politicians pay down any debt they owe, “money is often spent to ‘wind down’ the committee and pay off any office expenses.” There are guidelines for unused cash (emphasis mine):…”
Political committees have a treasurer, accounts payable, and must file finacial info with the FEC (like payments to a lawfirm for a dossier on Donald Trump, etc.) All this info is supposed to be public. And kept within the campaign committee.
So why is Hillary’s campaign $$$ being sent to a private company whose stated purpose is to manage Hillary’s personal income from speaking and books??
How is that campaign related?
Well, during the campaign she was giving speeches, so this is just paying her for time giving those speeches. Yeah, I’m sure it’s something like that.
I’m voting for Hillary paying off a sexual peccadillo….why not? (insert Sarcasm Tag)
Damn. Valerie just knocked it out of the park. I’m taking the rest of the day off. No point in trying now.
That photo of Hillary… is she not turtle-y enough for the Turtle Club?
The payments, marked as “rent”, damned well better be for rent or somebody in Hillary’s orbit has committed a fraud. Now, whether it’s actionable fraud based on campaign financing laws, or pure criminal fraud using campaign contributions for personal, use, somebody gots some ‘splaining to do.
In any event, Hillary’ has always been a grifter and her hypocrisy is just a dog bites man story.
You have it absolutely correct except for one tiny detail. Hillary’s explanations usually go something like, “I don’t remember. I can’t recall. Stop criticizing me you deplorable sexist!”
And she keeps getting away with it. (Sigh)
She doesn’t so much as get away with it because the Clintons have always trafficked in piss-poor quality, transparent lies. It’s just that she has a lot of enablers, so she really doesn’t have to be bothered to actually come up with a good lie.
Either her enablers are well-greased via the Clinton crime family’s slush fund/foundation, or she has lots of dirt on them.
It’s good to be the king.
God damn jeff sessions.
FYI, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign is claiming that the ZFS Holdings LLC office was used as a campaign office, a private office, and then a campaign wind-down office.
I expect this the first of a cavalcade of easily exposed cover stories to turn out to be a blatant lie, and then the next couple of dozen. I expect another series of Potemkin investigations, and then Clinton mouthpieces to dismiss everything as old news.
Anybody who has followed the Clintons over the years knows getting rich and living large factor big in their lives.