The most notable source of income: book royalties. Sanders received a $795,000 advance for his best-selling book, Our Revolution. He got another $63,750 for his forthcoming Bernie Sanders Guide to Political Revolution, a book aimed at young readers coauthored with Kate Waters. And he took in $6,735 in royalties for his 1997 memoir Outsider in the House.
That’s more than $865,000 for peddling his working-class ideas. Not bad.
Then there’s the $2,521 Sanders earned last year in royalties for his 1987 spoken-word folk album, We Shall Overcome.
Senate rules do not require members to report their government salaries on their annual disclosures, but all rank-and-file members earn $174,000 a year. That, combined with the more than $878,000 Sanders reported in his filing, puts the democratic socialist’s 2016 payday at roughly $1,052,000.
In addition to his take-home pay, publisher St. Martin’s Press paid all expenses on Sanders’ national book tour last November and December, which took him to 12 states and the District of Columbia. Disclosure of the total was not required, and Sanders did not provide it.
Then there’s a batch of retirement mutual funds held in the name of his wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders. The Senate only requires disclosure within broad dollar ranges — for instance, $15,001 to $50,000. So it’s impossible to ascertain the exact value of the retirement funds, but they are worth somewhere between $192,000 and $815,000.
In the “liabilities” category, Sanders lists two mortgages: one worth between $250,001 and $500,000, the other worth between $100,001 and $250,000.
Sanders’ most infamous real estate transaction — his 2016 purchase of a $575,000 lakefront home in North Hero — has been concealed behind an entity named the Islands Family Trust. In his Senate filing, Sanders discloses that he is “a co-trustee in a family trust created when we bought a summer home.”
Because the Senate’s disclosure standards are comfortably loose, we know much less about our junior senator’s finances than we would if he, say, released his tax returns.
But he doesn’t do that. During his 2016 presidential campaign, Sanders released only a summary of his 2014 tax return. As the fact-checking website PolitiFact noted, of all the candidates for president last year, “Sanders’ releases are less extensive than anybody’s but Donald Trump.”
Good company.
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What a fraud!
He and his wife are crooks and frauds! He’s nothing more than a Trump of a different color. Populism/nationalism is a danger to a real democracy and BS and Trump peddle this crap every day and they’re both complicit in the mess we’re in today. Please retire to one of your fraudulently acquired homes (looking at you Jane the embezzler) and fade away!
Bernie and his family have worked tirelessly for the people of VT.Seven Days has been muck raking Bernie for years. I find this to be extremely weird.Why would the ‘alternative’ newspaper of VT pick on the only national and sane voice that an overwhelming majority of Vermonters elected? in this day of declining ad revenues,you would think that an intelligent publisher would know his/her audience!
Where does he disclose the pay off from the Clinton Fund for not resisting the DNC’s plot to fuck him out of a primary win. Enjoy your new house one the lake as long as possible Bernie. Before you and your crook wife end up in the big house. Sell out! #timetovotethebaldguysout
So now Bernie has a net worth equal to about 1% of Hillary Clinton’s. yawn.
I’m glad that there is one news outlet in Vermont that is willing (sometimes) to treat Saint Bernard the same way Vermonters treat all other politicians, i.e., as the natural born hypocrites and liars that they are, and not merely repeat the Our-Dear-Leader-Can-Do-No-Wrong-And-Can-Never-Be-Criticized religion that substitutes for thinking in this state.
It’s simply amazing to me that the same people will scream like stuck pigs (and rightly so) because Trump will not release his tax returns, and then scream like stuck pigs because one 7D columnist suggests that Bernie should release his. Absolutely ridiculous.
Seven Days, report the facts without the snark and speculation. You just fuel the crazies. Anyone lumping DT and Bernie together clearly doesn’t understand them or the issues.
If only Bernie would just speak to Seven Days he could defend himself against the snarky undertones of this article but alas, he just won’t speak to poor Seven Days. I will organize a vigil for Seven Days. When is good for everyone?
He made over 1 million and paid 13% income tax; however he feels the rest of us should pay 90%. Is that the new math? I wonder if the “$600,000.00 payoff to get out of the election ” beach house was included in that salary?
I was looking for where he claimed the killary payoff. I suppose that went into a “foundation” or “trust,” so he doesn’t have to disclose it?
A man of the people — just not your kind of people, suckers! LOL
Notice the coincidental purchase of his third — third! — home following his Shrillary endorsement. Ahhhh, that sweeeeeet Clinton Ca$h…
And do remember: SOCIALISM IS FOR THE PEOPLE, NOT THE SOCIALISTS. 😉
Only $1m for an entire year? That would be a slow weekend for the Clintons.
Hay Bernie; “You didn’t build that.” The hypocrisy of the socialist/Communist Bernie Sanders is breathtaking. What puzzles me is why Bernie was unfazed by being screwed by the Democrat Party.
Did Bernie pay his fair share of taxes
It is not really about how much money you make or have, but it is what you do with it. I get 100% VA disability – al little over $2900/mo and a little over $1,000/mo Social Security, and being a long term Socialist out of that I still find some to give to causes and organizations that I support, all of which probably amounts to about $1K a month, counting what I give to my grand daughter, who is temporarily out of work, and I also provide her with a roof over her head – she still has car payments, and the required insurance, which when she gets a job, I will then spend on other causes that I consider worthy and in my best interest. Bernie’s book advance, like that of Obama, were one time things, and I am willing to bet that both Bernie and Obama will pay their fair share of taxes. On the other hand, we know that Trump got an advance on his books, and with the FEC requirement we also know that he made about $600 Million last year, but because he will not disclose his tax returns, we know nothing about the sources so we cannot know about conflicts of interest. We do know that he has not made a contribution to Trump Chairities for at least 8 years, but has paid no income taxes because it was good business practices. Who among these would you like to have for a neighbor when your lawn mower does not work and his does?
You call this reporting, John Walters? This is crap journalism and you know it. What is your personal vendetta against Sanders?
Another typical communist hypocrite !
Just like Obama care is only for the little people and not politicians ; because they have their own medical plan , communism is only for ignorant people and not for the liberal political elites like Sanders and the liberal democratic party !!
Actions (capitalism) speak louder than words (socialism).
As a true socialist, is he sharing his wealth? Three homes? Not much of a socialist, sounds like a true capitalist. Just like the Obamas & Clintons, preaching redistribution of wealth & socialism but getting filthy rich. All of their followers are drinking the koolaid and are clueless.
BIRDS OF A FEATHER , FLOCK TOGETHER. Hillary is a criminal and Bernie did not fight to expose the way She SHUT HIM DOWN by manipulating the media as well as other deeds—BECAUSE He could not “come into a court room with CLEAN HANDS. Like a box of hamsters; but, rich and two legged.
what a piece of slanted trash. did hillary 2020 pay for this?
How much does bern have in common with the working class he wants to keep his money but tax the rest of us out of ours as all socialists do thanks but no thanks.
The head Bernshevik, in his self declared Revolution, should be DONATING the proceeds of his new book and the advance he received to ‘The Cawz’ and the ‘Less Fawchinits’ he allegedly champions and NOT his personal bank account and growing real estate portfolio and Trusts. We The People paid his Senator’s salary while he barnstormed around the country not tending to business in DC, all the while the DNC was easily disenfranchising him, so the book proceeds should go back to The People since he wrote it on our dime.
It’s the only Socially Democratic thing to do unless he wants to continue to be called a sellout and a hypocrite.
JOHN WALTERS’ hit piece on Bernie is slanted drivel and half presented truths that would fit well on Breitbart or the Drudge report, or better yet, written by the DNC and Hillary 2020.
Either way, trash writing and trash publishing, Seven Days.
I am not getting the point of this cover page article on Bernie Sanders and the cartoon associated of Bernie. Do you have a point?
Has anybody ever read this column before? It’s a column. Opinion. Snark not only included, but expected. The snark and opinion are fairly equal opportunity, but this time, it’s aimed at the anointed one. I love Bernie Sanders, but he’s something of a hypocrite when it comes to transparency. Everybody bashing this piece because it takes on Bernie would be giggling like school girls if it was about a conservative. Pay attention. It’s not that hard.
Funny that so many on the left refuse to see that their hero is a 1%’er who uses every avenue to avoid taxes while railing against the rich who do as he does.
It’s also interesting that he got 4x the advance for his book as fellow 1% fraudster porking at the public trough Fauxahontas did.