California Gov. Gavin Newsom released years of overdue tax returns on Friday, disclosing nearly $200,000 in household staff wages and a $45,000 Armani clothing deduction, all while a federal investigation looms over his family's finances.
Newsom's office handed over more than 700 pages of filings covering tax years 2022 through 2024, ending a years-long gap during which the governor broke his own pledge to release returns annually. Select reporters were allowed to view the documents but not make copies. The filings show the Newsoms earned between $1.7 million and $2 million a year, roughly ten times his gubernatorial salary of about $200,000, with most of the income flowing from winery, restaurant, and hospitality businesses held in a blind trust. The returns do not identify which individual businesses generated profits or losses.
The timing was not voluntary. Newsom had faced mounting pressure for weeks over why a governor who once called tax transparency a "moral duty" had gone silent on the subject since his 2022 reelection campaign. That silence coincided with the disclosure last month that both Newsom and First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom are subjects of a federal investigation, a fact that made the missing returns a political liability rather than a mere oversight.
Among the most striking line items: in 2024 alone, the Newsoms paid nearly $200,000 in wages to household employees, plus employment taxes for domestic workers and babysitters. Annual childcare spending ranged from $14,000 to $44,000 per year for three of their four children across the filing period.
Those figures put the family's domestic payroll in the same neighborhood as the governor's own state salary. For a politician who has built a brand on economic populism and lecturing Californians about inequality, the contrast between the household budget and the median family income in his state speaks for itself.
The filings also revealed that in 2022, the Newsoms donated Armani business attire originally purchased for approximately $45,000 to an unnamed restorative justice nonprofit in Oakland. On their tax return, they valued the clothing at $4,900, the estimated thrift-store price. That gap between purchase price and claimed value is legal under IRS rules for used-clothing donations, but a ninety-percent markdown on designer suits donated to a nonprofit raises the kind of question that invites a second look.
Jennifer Siebel Newsom's production company, Girls Club Entertainment, lost approximately $37,000 in 2022. She reported earning just $11,700 from the business that year. The Associated Press reported that the company lost money in most years.
At the same time, Siebel Newsom collected $150,000 from The Representation Project, her nonprofit organization, to promote Girls Club Entertainment films and other initiatives. The arrangement, a nonprofit paying its founder six figures to promote the founder's own money-losing production company, is the kind of financial loop that raises conflict-of-interest questions even when it is technically permissible.
The Washington Free Beacon reported that Siebel Newsom has received over $1.5 million since 2020 from The Representation Project, which is funded in part by corporations like PG&E and Comcast, companies that receive California taxpayer dollars. Newsom himself directed organizations with California business interests to donate more than $4.4 million to his wife's separate nonprofit, the California Partners Project, according to the same report.
Caitlin Sutherland of Americans for Public Trust framed the broader pattern bluntly:
"Gavin Newsom made a show of promising to disclose his tax returns in order to criticize the president. However, he's failed to turn over any returns for years, coinciding with growing scrutiny about Jennifer Siebel Newsom's ties to her charities and accusations of self-enrichment."
Newsom earned $70,000 in author income in 2023 and $75,000 in 2024. The New York Times, which reviewed the filings, reported that it was unclear whether the income came from his memoir or other publishing projects.
Over the four-year period covered by the returns, the Newsoms paid nearly $2.8 million in federal income taxes and approximately $500,000 in California state taxes. Annual charitable donations ranged from roughly $40,000 to $67,000 per year.
The bulk of the family's wealth flows from the PlumpJack Group, Newsom's portfolio of wineries and restaurants placed in a blind trust when he took office. But the returns do not break out which businesses turned a profit and which did not, leaving a significant gap in the public's understanding of where the governor's money actually comes from. For a man who signed a 2019 law requiring gubernatorial candidates to disclose five years of federal tax returns before appearing on California's primary ballot, the opacity is notable.
Newsom released multiple years of returns during his 2018 gubernatorial campaign, going back to 2011. He pledged to continue releasing them annually while in office. He stopped after tax year 2020.
When The California Post asked Newsom about the missing returns earlier this month, the governor appeared caught off guard. "I know you love taxes," he told the reporter. "And you will have all those new tax returns, because, I have no reason why you haven't gotten them already." His office then told the outlet that "the remaining returns will be shared this month." Spokesperson Izzy Gardon confirmed Thursday they would arrive Friday.
Spokesperson Diana Crofts-Pelayo dismissed the filings as routine. "They're unremarkable and entirely consistent with what Californians already know from his annual Form 700 disclosures," she said. She added that the governor "publicly released his tax returns while he was on the ballot and is happy to go above and beyond by releasing the remaining years as well."
Calling a voluntary disclosure "above and beyond" is a stretch for a governor who made the same disclosure a legal requirement for his successors, and then failed to meet his own standard for years running.
None of this arrives in a vacuum. Last month, Newsom disclosed that he and Siebel Newsom are subjects of a federal investigation. An unnamed source previously told The Post that the probe examines Siebel Newsom's taxes. Newsom has described the investigation as politically motivated and accused the Trump administration of weaponizing the Justice Department against him.
The federal scrutiny extends into Newsom's inner circle. Dana Williamson, his former chief of staff, pleaded guilty in May to conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, filing a false tax return, and lying to the FBI. Williamson is scheduled to be sentenced September 17.
Newsom's political ambitions add another layer. He is widely seen as a potential candidate for the 2028 Democratic presidential primary, a race in which he already faces competition from within his own party. A federal investigation, a convicted former chief of staff, and years of broken transparency promises make for a difficult campaign biography, no matter how many pages of tax returns the governor's office eventually hands over.
The tax year 2025 returns were not included in Friday's release. The Newsoms filed for an extension and expect to complete those returns in October.
Meanwhile, the governor's own personal scandals continue to resurface in national media, adding to a political profile that grows more complicated by the month.
Newsom spent years lecturing others about financial transparency and even signed it into law. When it came time to live by his own rules, Californians got years of silence, followed by 700 pages delivered under pressure, with a federal probe as the backdrop. Accountability, it turns out, is easier to mandate than to practice.
