One of Jon Stewart's favorite targets these days is GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, whom the Comedy Central host has called a “multi, multi,multi, multi-millionaire” while carefully avoiding the fact that he too is considered to be very wealthy.
Perhaps Stewart's harshest criticism of the former Massachusetts governor came on January 24 when he asked:
Using Romney's newly released tax returns, the 49-year-old comedian calculated the candidate's income as “almost $57,000 per day!”
But in an article in the Daily Caller, reporter Sandy Nelson indicated that “Stewart's own income level brings him and his wife Tracey to approximately $41,000 a day,” a number derived from the comedian's annual salary of $15 million and an estimation of his net worth at $80 million.
While $80 million doesn’t yet put Stewart into the same wealth bracket as Romney, he is already on pace to be richer than the former Massachusetts governor when he reaches his age.
These figures show that Stewart makes more than 300 times the median American salary, a fact you'll never hear on The Daily Show.
“And then there are the houses,” Nelson adds.
“When Arizona Sen. John McCain ran for president in 2008, he was criticized for not knowing how many houses he owned (The answer was seven.)...Stewart is well on his way to McCain country, with three opulent mansions whose combined value is $12.8million.”
But technically, the satirist doesn’t own those homes: They were purchased through private trusts named after his pets to protect those assets from lawsuits, to diminish state tax liability, and to avoid public scrutiny.
In 2005, Stewart bought a two-story Manhattan penthouse for $5.8 million and then bought two adjacent lakefront mansions in Red Bank, New Jersey, during 2009 and 2010.
But despite the satirist's jokes to the contrary, being wealthy doesn't mean having no problems.
In 2007 and 2008, the New York Department of State issued liens against the comedian and his wife for not paying their taxes in full, according to documents that refer to the Stewarts as “tax delinquents.”
The Empire State issued its first “state tax warrant” for the couple’s failure to pay $476.03, sending the notice to the address of the KLS Professional Advisors Group, the financial firm that manages Stewart’s money.
New York later issued a second lien in September 2008, this time a $3,225.63 demand to Stewart’s wife Tracey—erroneously spelled “Tracy” but sent to the address of the Stewarts’ trusts.
Responding to the Daily Caller article, John Nolte at Breitbart.com stated that the information regarding Stewart's wealth going public will not have any impact on his comedy.
Of course, that means nothing to Stewart as he continues to carry Obama's water and launch divisive class warfare attacks from the platform of a super PAC known as Comedy Central to attack Mitt Romney's wealth.
Nolte concluded that Stewart is “the monkey at the end of Obama and the mainstream media's leash—the pet whose name they should use to purchase their own opulent mansions with.”
