Ken Griffin Spent $54 Million Fighting a Tax Increase for the Rich. Secret IRS Data Shows It Paid Of

[Nevilledog]

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Andy Kroll
@AndyKroll
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It's hard to measure return on investment when a donor spends big in a policy fight.

But thanks to our secret tax data, @ProPublica can reveal how much billionaire Ken Griffin saved when he spent $54 mil to defeat a new tax in Illinois.

It's quite a lot.

propublica.org
Ken Griffin Spent $54 Million Fighting a Tax Increase for the Rich. Secret IRS Data Shows It Paid...
The ultrawealthy poured money into a successful campaign to defeat a graduated state income tax. For the first time, we can reveal the scale of their return on this investment.
7:11 AM · Jul 7, 2022

https://www.propublica.org/article/ken-griffin-illinois-graduated-income-tax

For billionaire Ken Griffin, it was well worth spending $54 million to ensure he and other rich Illinoisans wouldn’t have to pay more tax.

By the time Illinois voters streamed into voting booths on Election Day in 2020, Griffin, then Illinois’ wealthiest resident, had made sure they’d heard plenty about why they should not vote to raise taxes on him and the state’s other rich people. His tens of millions paid for an unrelenting stream of ads and flyers against an initiative on that year’s ballot, which would have allowed Illinois lawmakers to join 32 other states in setting higher tax rates for the wealthy than for everyone else.

In the end, Griffin spent about $18 for every one of the 3.1 million votes against the initiative. After initial optimism about its prospects, the measure came up hundreds of thousands of votes short and went down to defeat.

Rarely does the public get a clear view of the payoff for wealthy Americans who put their money down to achieve a political outcome. But in this case, ProPublica’s trove of IRS data can provide crucial context for the ballot fight. For Griffin and many of his fellow ultrawealthy Illinoisans, spending even such a vast amount was well worth it when compared with what a tax hike might have cost them.

*snip*

[TheRealNorth]

1. If anything....

It sounds like ballot initiatives to raise taxes on the rich are a great way to suck money away from donations to Republicans.

[2naSalit]

2. +1

[Brainfodder]

3. So he paid a weird 54M in tax eh?

Extreme dodgers should be executed IMHO.

Once the addicted worst are executed, most will fall in line, way too soft on this one, drastic measures are sometimes REQUIRED!

Worth a shot?

Pun intended.

[Midnight Writer]

4. Republicans are advertising today calling the indexed tax proposal "Pritzker's Tax Hike"

even though it would have lowered taxes on over 90% of Illinois citizens.

Most depressing was driving through the poorest areas around and seeing yard signs attacking "Pritzker's Tax Hike". People who could really use a tax break had a conniption when the Governor tried to give them one.