Jacky Rosen Called the Trump Tax Cuts a Monstrous ‘Giveaway’ to the Rich. Then She Took Advantage of Them.
11th October 2024
Sen. Jacky Rosen (D., Nev.) pulls no punches when speaking publicly about the 2017 Trump tax cuts, calling the package a “monstrosity” that is “just a giveaway” to the wealthy while urging Congress to focus its efforts on making the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes.
But behind the scenes, Rosen, who is running for reelection against Republican challenger Army veteran Sam Brown, appears to have structured her own vast financial holdings to take advantage of certain provisions in the Trump tax cuts to reduce her family’s tax liability. Rosen is worth up to $18.2 million, according to her latest financial disclosures, with upwards of $7.3 million housed in her family’s limited partnership, the Rosen Family Limited Partnership. Limited partnerships are a common vehicle utilized by wealthy Americans to give tax-free gifts to their children and shield their offspring from estate taxes.
But the Trump tax cuts appear to have rendered moot the need for the Rosen family limited partnership. The law doubled the estate tax exemption from $11 million in 2017 for a married couple to more than $22 million in 2018. Put simply, the estate tax provision enabled Rosen to transfer her entire net worth to her child tax-free without the use of any sophisticated tax strategies.
I happen to agree with former Senator Phil Gramm, who once said about a particular government program that he didn’t think it was legitimate and intended to speak against it — and vote against it — every chance he got, but so long as the program existed, he was going to take advantage of it for himself and his constituents because it would be stupid not to. This is why I take advantage of any government giveaway I can, regarding it as a partial refund of the onerous taxes that I am perennially forced to pay.