Nixon’s wife worked for Nixon before race

Before Cynthia Nixon's wife Christine Marinoni landed on the city payroll, she got a salary from — Cynthia Nixon.

Newly-released tax documents show that Marinoni in 2013 drew a $96,200 salary — $117,560 counting retirement contributions — from The Fickle Mermaid, a passthrough corporation Nixon set up to handle her acting income and expenses.

Nixon paid Marinoni a salary because of her role as her business partner, a campaign spokeswoman said.

The company stopped paying Marinoni in 2014, when she got a job in the city Department of Education under Mayor de Blasio, a longtime Nixon pal whose campaign she worked on.

Marinoni earned $86,992 from the city in 2014, in part because she did not work the full year; $125,611 in 2015, $124,768 in 2016 and $128,092 in 2017. She resigned from her city gig earlier this year, shortly before Nixon announced her candidacy for governor.

After weeks of hounding from Gov. Cuomo's campaign, Nixon on Friday released five years of tax returns filed by the couple and the corporation. Reporters were allowed to review them at her campaign headquarters for three hours, but were now allowed to copy or photograph them.

The Fickle Mermaid is an “S corporation” which Nixon set up under IRS rules to take in her earnings as an actress. The corporation then paid salaries to Marinoni and Nixon.

S corporations are perfectly legal — but in a statement, Cuomo implied Nixon was using her S corporation to avoid taxes.

“Her actions don't match her rhetoric of increased taxes and wealth redistribution,” Cuomo's campaign said in a statement. “While asking New Yorkers making $300,000 a year to pay more in taxes, she's shielded her fortune through an S Corporation to reduce both her federal and state tax liability.”