Governor Gavin Newsom released four years of tax returns to handpicked media outlets in a private Sacramento session, barring reporters from copying the 718-page document and excluding critical news organizations entirely.
Reporters from The New York Times and Politico were among the select group invited to review the filings Thursday in a controlled setting where they could take notes only with pen and paper. Newsom himself did not attend. The California Post, the outlet whose sustained coverage pressured the governor into committing to the release, was not invited.
The returns cover tax years 2021 through 2024, a period during which Newsom had stopped making his filings public despite pledging to release them annually while in office. His last publicly available returns had covered through 2020. The governor signed a 2019 California law requiring gubernatorial candidates to disclose five years of federal income tax returns before appearing on the state's primary ballot. He released multiple years of returns during his 2018 campaign, dating back to 2011. Then the releases stopped.
Findings from the restricted review session were published Friday morning by the outlets that participated. The documents show Newsom and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, reported $3.5 million in taxable income in 2021, including roughly $1 million from the sale of their Marin County home. Annual income ran approximately $1.7 million in 2022 and $2 million in both 2023 and 2024.
Most of the couple's income came from winery, restaurant, and hospitality businesses placed in a blind trust after Newsom took office. The returns do not identify which individual businesses generated profits or losses, a gap that limits any meaningful public accounting of how the governor's private interests performed while he set policy for the state.
Newsom's gubernatorial salary appeared in the filings at approximately $200,000 annually; the salary has since risen to $246,000. He collected $70,000 in author income in 2023 and $75,000 in 2024, connected to his memoir. The couple paid nearly $200,000 to household staff over the period covered by the returns.
Siebel Newsom's film production company, Girls Club Entertainment, lost approximately $37,000 in 2022, the same year she reported just $11,700 in earnings from the company. She collected $150,000 or more each year from her nonprofit, The Representation Project.
Over the four years, the Newsoms paid nearly $2.8 million in federal income taxes and approximately $500,000 in California income taxes. Charitable donations ranged from $40,000 to $67,000 annually.
One line item stood out. In 2022, the Newsoms donated Armani business attire originally purchased for approximately $45,000 to a restorative justice nonprofit in Oakland. On their tax filings, the couple estimated the clothing's thrift-store value at $4,900. The write-off reduced their taxable income by that amount, a fraction of the original price, but a deduction built on a valuation the couple assigned themselves.
The broader picture raises questions that the controlled release format made harder to answer. With reporters limited to pen and paper and no copies of 718 pages, thorough review of the filings was constrained by design. The governor's office has not explained why it chose that format.
Spokesperson Diana Crofts-Pelayo dismissed concerns about the returns themselves, telling The Post they contain nothing surprising.
"They're unremarkable and entirely consistent with what Californians already know from his annual Form 700 disclosures."
She added that Newsom "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." That framing, casting a years-late release of previously promised documents as going "above and beyond", drew sharp responses from California Republicans.
U.S. Rep. Kevin Kiley, a former California state legislator, told The Post that the selective process contradicted the governor's stated commitment to openness.
"If the governor is truly committed to transparency, it makes little sense to pick and choose who that transparency extends to."
Kiley went further, framing the release as part of a pattern.
"This appears to be another Newsom story where the factual details are very different from the self-proclaimed headline."
U.S. Rep. James Gallagher offered a blunter assessment, comparing the governor's transparency record to his handling of California's homelessness crisis. "He talks big about things but never actually delivers," Gallagher said. "This is another instance of that, only allowing select people and only pen and paper. This isn't real transparency. There are still a lot of questions where Gavin's money comes from."
Scott Meyers, a GOP candidate running for Congress in California's 30th District, framed the issue around basic accountability to voters.
"If you want voters to trust you as a steward of their tax dollars, you should welcome that level of scrutiny."
The timing of the release adds another layer. Newsom and Siebel Newsom disclosed last month that they are subjects of a federal investigation. A source previously told The Post that one inquiry is examining Siebel Newsom's taxes specifically. Newsom has accused the Trump administration of weaponizing the Justice Department against him, though he has offered no evidence to support that claim.
When a Post reporter asked Newsom about his long-missing returns earlier this month, the governor deflected. "I know you love taxes," he said, before pivoting to criticize President Trump. He then added: "And you will have all those new tax returns, because, I have no reason why you haven't gotten them already."
The governor's office had told The Post the returns would be shared by the end of July. Spokesperson Izzy Gardon confirmed Thursday that the release would come Friday, but did not mention that other outlets had already been contacted and had reviewed the filings in the private session. The 2025 returns have been filed for extension and are expected in October.
Separately, the governor's former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, pleaded guilty in May to conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, filing a false tax return, and lying to the FBI. She is scheduled to be sentenced September 17. Her guilty plea added to the cloud of legal and financial scrutiny already surrounding Newsom's inner circle.
California under Newsom has also faced federal pressure on fiscal accountability more broadly. The Trump administration withheld $1.3 billion in Medicaid payments to the state over fraud concerns, a dispute that underscored Washington's skepticism about how Sacramento manages public money.
Newsom built part of his political brand on financial openness. He released years of returns during his 2018 campaign. He signed a law mandating disclosure for future candidates. He promised to keep releasing his own filings every year. Then he went four years without doing so, and when he finally did, he controlled who could see the documents, banned copies, and skipped the event himself.
The returns do not identify which of his blind-trust businesses made money and which lost it. The format ensured that no reporter could take the 718 pages home for careful review. And the outlet that pushed hardest for the release was shut out of the room entirely.
A governor who signs a transparency law and then treats his own tax returns like classified briefing materials has answered the question his critics are asking, just not the way he intended.
