CLINTONS SHOW $109M IN INCOME SINCE LEAVING WH

Aaron wrote:That's about what, half of what Alex Rodriguez makes to screw up the post season every year in New York?

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Bill Clinton released tax data Friday showing they earned $109 million over the last eight years, an ascent into the uppermost tier of American taxpayers that seemed unimaginable in 2001, when they left the White House with little money and facing millions in legal bills.

The bulk of their wealth has come from speaking and book-writing, which together account for almost $92 million, including a $15 million advance — larger than previously thought — from Mr. Clinton’s 2004 autobiography, “My Life.” The former president’s vigorous lecture schedule, where his speeches command upwards of $250,000, brought in almost $52 million.

During that time, the Clintons paid $33.8 million in federal taxes and claimed deductions for $10.2 million in charitable contributions. The contributions went to a family foundation run by the Clintons that has given away only about half of the money they put into it, and most of that was last year, after Mrs. Clinton declared her candidacy.

UPDATE: There is roughly $18 million that the summary doesn't account for.

The Clintons’ 2006 tax return shows that, through a blind trust, the couple acquired an interest of an undisclosed size in a private investment fund known as the Quellos Alpha Engine, based in the Cayman Islands. At the time, the fund was controlled by the Quellos Group of Seattle, one of the world’s largest managers of mutual funds made up of hedge funds. Hollywood mogul Haim Saban is one of the biggest investors in Quellos and is also one of Hillary Clinton’s most prolific fundraisers.

A 2006 investigation into abusive tax shelters by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations reported that Quellos used offshore shell companies to engage in fake transactions that generated billions of dollars in capital losses on paper. One series of transactions, the report said, erased more than $2 billion in capital gains that would have been taxed, costing the U.S. Treasury hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.