NEW YORK - Tali Farhadian Weinstein, the Jewish, leading candidate running for Manhattan district attorney in the Democratic primary, reportedly paid virtually no federal income taxes in four of six recent years, according to a ProPublica investigation released on Wednesday.
Farhadian Weinstein – who, if elected, would take over the investigation relating to former President Donald Trump’s taxes – reported income as high as $107 million in 2011 with her husband, hedge fund manager Boaz Weinstein. She recently donated $8.2 million to her campaign — more than her seven Democratic rivals have raised in total.
But in 2017, according to a trove of tax data obtained by ProPublica, she and her husband, who reside on Manhattan’s Upper East Side with their three daughters, paid no federal income tax. In 2013 and 2015, they also paid no federal income tax. In 2014, she and her husband paid $6,584.
As a Persian Jew born in the Iranian capital of Tehran, Farhadian Weinstein fled the Islamic Republic with her family at the age of four just before Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to consolidate power in the wake of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. After a 10-month stint in Israel, the family settled first in New York and then northern New Jersey.
In response to questions raised from ProPublica's research, Farhadian Weinstein, 44, stated: “In six of the last 11 years (the years in which we had income), we paid more than 50% of our income in Federal, State and New York City taxes. In the other years, we earned no net income and, as a result, did not pay income tax. We both benefited from many opportunities in this city and country and are glad to pay taxes at among the very highest tax rates in the entire country.”
If Farhadian Weinstein wins the Democratic primary, in which early voting has already begun, she is virtually guaranteed to win the general election later in the year since Democrats dominate the borough. She would then take on her most high-profile potential case – the Trump investigation.