Presidential candidate Carly Fiorina and her husband, Frank, are worth $59 million, the campaign said Wednesday night in an email that offered up the kind of detailed financial disclosures that only presidential nominees traditionally release.
“I’ve taken hundreds of questions—whether about hot dogs or my personal finances—and I think it’s all fair game. I think leadership of any kind requires trust and transparency and voters should demand no less from their political leadership in government,” the Republican candidate and former Hewlett-Packard CEO said in a statement emailed to reporters.
Fiorina disclosed two years of tax returns — typically only released by the two nominees — and the personal financial disclosure form candidates are required to submit to the Federal Election Commission.
Related: Carly Fiorina takes ‘no delight’ in Hillary questions
Fiorina has spent weeks painting herself as a more transparent and honest candidate than Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. The disclosures come as Clinton faces questions over donations the Clinton Foundation received and the Clintons’ hefty speaking fees.
But her remarkable wealth may also be a liability: Fiorina received a $21 million severance package (which didn’t even include another $21 million in pension and stock options she also stood to gain upon departure, according to The New York Times) when she was fired from HP. There, Fiorina controversially laid off thousands of employees. When she ran for Senate in 2010, this disparity was a huge liability — one Fiorina seems keen on getting ahead of early in the campaign. In their 2013 tax return, the Fiorinas reported $1.9 million in gross income and $261,426 in charitable donations. The campaign says the couple’s effective tax rate (federal, state, and local) was 30% and their effective federal tax rate was 20% — higher than the 14% rate paid by 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2011. The campaign notes that Fiorina’s net worth includes assets and cash, as well as real property, which is not disclosed on financial disclosure forms. “If you are comparing her net worth to other candidates, you will need to add their real property” to the final number, Deputy Campaign Manager Sarah Isgur Flores said.
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