Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earned hundreds of thousands of shekels between 2017 and 2018 from overseas investments, according to a report Friday.
The extent of Netanyahu’s finances has drawn scrutiny in recent years due to his requests for wealthy benefactors to fund his legal defense in a series of graft cases, as well as to receive retroactive tax breaks.
Netanyahu was estimated by Forbes last year to be worth NIS 50 million (over $14 million).
After returning to the Prime Minister’s Office in 2009, Netanyahu’s personal lawyer and cousin David Shimron submitted a draft agreement to then-attorney general Mani Mazuz between the premier and Israel Discount Bank, the Haaretz daily reported. The proposed arrangement was later approved by then-state comptroller Yosef Shapira and the Permits Committee.
“Mr. Netanyahu is interested in investing his money in the most low-risk manner without being in any situation of suspicion or fear of a conflict of interest,” Shimron was quoted as writing to Mazuz. “Therefore, as he did when he was finance minister, it is requested that the management of his funds be performed by the company UBS Private Wealth Management Group.”
Shimron later reported the majority of Netanyahu’s investments overseas were in US government bonds and that the premier had a dollar account at UBS.
According to the newspaper, a declaration of finances submitted to Shapira showed Netanyahu made NIS 294,000 (about $87,000) in earnings from his overseas account in 2017 and in the first quarter of 2018 made another NIS 135,000 (some $40,000).
The report also said that in 2014 Shapira noted in a letter to Netanyahu that the balance in his account at UBS was down by $156,497, while his checking account at Israel Discount Bank was up by NIS 677,243. In 2015, Shapira asked Netanyahu to explain why his holdings at Israel Discount Bank, where he has both a dollar and shekel account, were up by $177,000 and NIS 368,000.
“I would like to remind you that according to the rules, a minister will report to the state comptroller on the withdrawal of funds from a pension fund, savings plans or a trust account,” Shapira reportedly wrote in the 2014 letter.
An unnamed associate of the prime minister told Haaretz that all of Netanyahu’s filings with the State Comptroller’s Office were accurate.
“For many years he preferred that part of his financial assets be invested overseas to avoid a situation of a conflict of interest. By the way, the investments overseas were very low risk. The returns weren’t high, [and the investments] were mainly in government bonds. As a rule, these investments aren’t so successful,” the associate said.
The report noted the size of Netanyahu’s earnings suggested he had large sums in the foreign account if he was making such returns on low-yielding investments.
Last month, the Permits Committee at the State Comptroller’s Office said it wouldn’t consider Netanyahu’s request to receive funds from a foreign benefactor to pay for the legal defense in his corruption trial.
Netanyahu had asked the oversight committee to allow an NIS 10 million ($2.9 million) donation from Spencer Partrich, a Michigan-based real estate magnate. Because Partrich also happens to be a witness in one of the cases, the committee had asked Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit for his opinion on the matter.
Mandelblit had told the committee he opposed Netanyahu’s request, saying the donation was tantamount to an illicit gift.
The committee also said it wouldn’t renew discussions on a retroactive request for Netanyahu to receive some $300,000 in funds for legal fees from his cousin Nathan Milikowsky.
Netanyahu faces charges of fraud and breach of trust in three separate criminal cases, as well as bribery in one of them. He has denied wrongdoing and claimed the charges were an effort by political rivals, the media, law enforcement and prosecutors to remove him from office.
In June, a Knesset committee voted to approve controversial retroactive tax benefits worth hundreds of thousands of shekels for Netanyahu, with one of his Likud party allies claiming the taxes would’ve left the premier “financially crippled.”
The benefits cover the cost of income tax Netanyahu owes due to upgrades to his vehicle, renovations at his private home in Caesarea, and other expenses dating back to 2009.
Likud has denied that Netanyahu would seek reimbursement for taxes he paid on private investments and insisted that the tax benefits would only relate to expenses he incurred in his duty as prime minister.