Finance

Kamala Harris Tax Returns Show Husband Doug Emhoff’s Biglaw Haul From DLA Piper

Less than 10 percent of this power couple’s 2018 income came from Harris’s salary as a sitting United States senator.

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(Photo by Mason Trinca/Getty Images)

On Sunday, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris made 15 years of her tax returns available for public dissection, just in time for tax day 2019. That is pretty cool, and means that so far she has released more years of personal tax records than any other 2020 Democratic candidate.

There is a long and important tradition of releasing your tax returns as a presidential candidate, with one big orange exception. A tax return gives voters and commentators an excellent means of assessing a candidate’s sources of income, and in turn, that candidate’s possible biases and conflicts of interest. Senator Harris, a career public servant, not surprisingly got a lot of her personal income over the years from her salary in government positions: as District Attorney of San Francisco, as Attorney General of California, and most recently as a United States senator.

For 2018, Senator Harris also got a big boost in her income from her bestselling (though not particularly well-reviewed) memoir, “The Truths We Hold.” She reported approximately $733,000 in income last year from her book, but claimed to have paid $412,000 in “commissions and fees” related to the book, for a net writing income of about $320,000. I wonder what those “commissions and fees” were for. Her literary agent? A ghostwriter? Marketing funded by the author? Her book is published by Penguin Press, pretty much the most reputable publisher out there, and they’re sure not going to be tacking extra charges on for their authors.

Beyond her writing and her government salary, Senator Harris does not seem to be reporting particularly interesting income streams. That’s probably a good thing for a presidential candidate. A boring tax return is certainly better than a bunch of shady write-offs and unexplained wire transfers from Moscow.

But in 2014, Kamala Harris got married to DLA Piper litigator Doug Emhoff, and DAMN. The happy couple started filing joint returns, and their collective income from 2014 on was through the roof. Last year, Mr. Emhoff’s income as a DLA Piper partner and from his prior law firm, Venable, impressively totaled approximately $1.5 million.

Together, Ms. Harris and Mr. Emhoff had an adjusted gross income of $1,889,156 and an effective tax rate of 37 percent in 2018. That is the most income and the highest tax rate out of the entire Democratic field so far.

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Mr. Emhoff is certainly doing well for himself and his family, although only moderately well by DLA Piper standards. Profits per equity partner were $1.87 million in 2018. I suppose it says something about America that less than 10 percent of this power couple’s 2018 income — about $157,000 — came from Harris’s salary as a sitting United States senator.

The latest available figures from the U.S. Census Bureau show median annual income for an American household at around $61,372. Ms. Harris’s household income is more than 30 times the national median. But at least she’s being transparent about where all that cash has been coming from. And come on, her and her husband are adorable. There’s something compelling about a lawyer couple with a combined annual income well into the seven figures having a simple courthouse wedding. It’s also nice in a refreshingly uncreepy way that their age difference is only seven days.

At this point in the game, it is entirely possible that the first First Gentleman could be a well-to-do Biglaw attorney. As that plays out, we’ll all be eagerly awaiting the release of tax returns from another candidate, Mayor Pete, the only Millennial thus far in the running for 2020. Perhaps then we’ll get to learn more about the income of another possible First Gentleman: Pete Buttigieg’s husband Chasten Glezman. Mr. Glezman is a reportedly beloved junior high teacher who has probably improved the lives of dozens (maybe hundreds) of young Americans. I’m guessing we’re going to be very underwhelmed though when we get a peek at Mr. Glezman’s contribution to his household income compared to Mr. Emhoff’s. I suppose it says even more about America that so many of us have no problem with that.

Jonathan Wolf is a litigation associate at a midsize, full-service Minnesota firm. He also teaches as an adjunct writing professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, has written for a wide variety of publications, and makes it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at [email protected].

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