Ciattarelli still hasn’t released his tax returns

Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli is facing questions over his failure to release his tax returns.

Ciattarelli last released tax returns in 2017, for the preceding five years, during his first unsuccessful campaign for the governor’s office. He did not release state or federal returns during his 2021 campaign for the job and hasn’t in his current campaign, according to reporting from Philly’s Voice in May.

He said he would release his returns this year, but gave no timeline, according to Philly Voice. According to a press release issued by Democratic nominee Mikie Sherrill’s campaign on Sept. 12, he has not released them.

Sherrill called on Ciattarelli to “follow her example” and release his tax returns and other details of his finances, as she has done.

“Transparency and accountability are important — I’m not afraid of it,” Sherrill said in the press release. “I think Jack is, since he refuses to release his tax returns or any information about the millions he made profiting off the opioid epidemic.”

The press release includes a link to a 2021 NJ.com story about a medical continuing education publishing company, Galen Publishing, that Ciattarelli owned and from which he had income that was disclosed on his most recent publicly released tax returns, for 2017, the year he sold the company.

NJ.com reported that some of the materials published by Galen appeared to downplay the dangers of opioids. In one paper, an author wrote: “Misuse or diversion of pain relievers is a significant problem, especially among adolescents and young adults. Concerns about opioid dependence, addiction, or non-medical use often create barriers to effective pain management … The risk of opioid misuse is low among patients with chronic pain who do not have preexisting substance use disorders.”

As of the May article in Philly Voice, Ciattarelli had disclosed to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission holdings of municipal bonds, dividends from Microsoft, as well as some investment income received by his wife, though he said they separated in 2023. He reported no salary in 2024.

Sherrill, on the other hand, has released the exact values of her holdings, according to the New Jersey Globe.

The candidate and current member of the U.S. House of Representatives is worth about $9 million, almost entirely from the salary of her husband, investment banker Jason Hedberg, the Globe reported. He earned about $2.9 million in 2024, $2.7 million in 2023, $2.7 million in 2022 and $2.5 million in 2021, according to Sherrill’s disclosure.

Sherrill currently owns no stocks: She sold all of her stock in 2020, a year after she took office, and converted her investments into pooled exchange-traded funds to avoid conflicts of interest.

Sherrill’s investment holdings total about $4.4 million. She also earns a salary of $174,000 as a member of Congress.

“Congresswoman Sherrill has smartly decided there’s only one way to avoid the inherent conflict of interest in making decisions that affect individual stock values, which is to not buy and sell individual stocks,” Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, told the New Jersey Globe in 2020.

The Ciattarelli campaign did not immediately return a request for comment for this story.