Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker and his wife MK made more than $3.2 million in state taxable income in 2023, nearly $1 million more than the year before but well below the income amounts they have earned in some previous years since he became governor in 2019, according to the couple’s income tax returns released by Pritzker’s campaign Friday.
The billionaire heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, Pritzker has used his personal wealth to fund both his personal political campaigns as well as efforts for other Democratic causes, including abortion rights, nationwide. He doesn’t take a salary as governor.
In 2022, the Pritzkers reported $2.3 million in state taxable income, the lowest amount since 2017, the earliest year the governor and his wife have publicly shared their tax returns. The couple’s high-water income mark since then occurred in 2021 when they reported an income of $18.5 million due in large part to $11.3 million in capital gains, the returns showed.
In his latest tax returns for 2023, the governor paid $1.3 million in taxes to the federal government and $154,170 to the state, the returns show. That’s significantly more than the roughly $210,000 he paid in personal income tax to the federal government last year.
Trusts benefiting the governor in 2023 paid $10 million in state taxes and $49.9 million in federal taxes, according to the campaign. Those tax returns were not released to the public.
Forbes, which keeps a running almanac of billionaires, placed the governor’s net worth at $3.7 billion as of Friday, just higher than its $3.6 billion estimate when he released his tax returns last year.
Each year, Pritzker’s campaign releases the top pages of his federal and state tax returns, offering only a partial picture of his personal fortune. Much of his wealth is in domestic and offshore trusts.
The campaign released the income tax returns on Friday afternoon, which is a common tactic for politicians and others to announce information they aren’t trying to draw much attention to because it is when fewer people are focused on the news.
After being elected governor, Pritzker gave control of his personal investments to an independent trustee at Northern Trust Co., a move he said would allow him to avoid potential conflicts of interest. He also promised to divest himself of “his personally-held direct interests in companies that have contracts” with the state, though he has never provided a full accounting of those transactions.
While Pritzker refers to the arrangement as a “blind trust,” experts have said the arrangement isn’t truly blind because the trustees have to provide him with the information necessary to complete his mandatory economic interest disclosures. Pritzker has said he has no control over those decisions and has promised upon leaving office to make a final accounting of any returns he’s earned on investments in any company that held state contracts and to make equivalent contributions to charity.
The governor and first lady made $1.65 million in personal charitable donations last year, the campaign said.
Pritzker’s political spending has come close to half a billion dollars as he’s funded candidates, the recent Democratic National Convention in Chicago and support for abortion rights, the Tribune previously reported.
He has self-funded his campaigns and spent more than $130 million to defeat Darren Bailey in 2022, as the downstate Republican was backed by also-ultrarich megadonor Richard Uihlein.
The governor was a de facto host of the convention this year and a key player in bringing it to Chicago, but he has not disclosed how much he personally contributed to the DNC. His campaign didn’t respond to an inquiry Friday about his support for the DNC, though a spokesperson has previously confirmed the governor and first lady “contributed in their personal capacity.”
The Pritzkers reported earning $5.1 million in state taxable income in 2020, $2.4 million during his first year in office in 2019 and $4.4 million in 2018, an election year. In 2017, the year Pritzker left the private equity firm he ran with his brother, his and MK’s state taxable income was $55 million.
