Avid soccer fan Phil Murphy once again incurred a big loss from his ownership stake in a New Jersey women’s professional soccer team, Sky Blue FC.
The Democratic nominee for governor lost roughly $523,000 on the Tinton Falls-based soccer club in 2016, according to his tax returns for that year. The team has not qualified for the playoffs in the National Women’s Soccer League since 2013.
With four days left until the election, Murphy’s campaign made the tax documents available to reporters for two hours Friday inside a Newark hotel conference room. Photographs and copies were not permitted.
Murphy has lost more than $5 million over the years on the soccer team, according to news outlets that saw tax documents for previous years during the primary. His campaign has said the investment in the team is not about making money.
The former Goldman Sachs (GS) executive made $4.6 million last year, the vast majority of it ($3.4 million) coming from capital gains, according to a two-page summary of the tax returns the campaign released Thursday.
The full tax returns made available Friday showed Murphy has a diverse investment portfolio, with stock in Apple, Boeing, Bank of America, Kraft-Heinz, Macy’s, McDonald’s, Netflix and Whole Foods, among hundreds of others.
Murphy and his wife, Tammy, have pledged to put their investments in a blind trust if he is elected governor, a campaign spokesman said. Gov. Chris Christie and his wife have done the same.
Murphy paid nearly $1.5 million in taxes in 2016 for an effective tax rate of 32 percent when counting federal, state and local taxes. He made $32.8 million from 2010 through 2016 and paid $11.3 million in taxes, according to figures released by his campaign Thursday.
The Murphys paid $204,000 in property taxes last year on their Middletown home. They paid a lot less in property taxes in Europe: $13,000 for their villa in Italy and nearly $4,000 for a home in Berlin. Murphy is the former U.S. ambassador to Germany.
