The bulk of their income – more than $6 million – came from speaking fees for appearances made largely before Hillary Clinton launched her campaign in April 2015.
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Clinton and her running mate, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, released their tax returns on Thursday in an effort to pressure the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, into doing the same. Ted Cruz, theorizing about why Trump has not made his tax returns public.
Mr Clinton also said the email server should not be a cause for distrust and that people in the national security community would not endorse his wife’s candidacy if it was. “What is he trying to hide?”, said Jennifer Palmieri.
Hillary Clinton on Friday did something every major party’s presidential nominee has done since 1976, with the sole exception of the man she is now running against: She released her tax returns.
Over the course of their careers the Clintons have published all of their tax returns since 1977.
It’s probably not helped by the fact that The Donald has dragged his feet on releasing his tax returns and now doesn’t plan to do so until after the election. Others have suggested that the tax documents would reveal business interests that could be problematic if he were elected. Charitable contributions accounted for 9.8 percent of their adjusted gross income.
The Clintons’ 2015 return showed that, unlike most Americans, just $100 of their income came from wages. They were within US$1 million of reaching the 0.01 per cent threshold – or the top 1 per cent of the top 1 per cent. Though the public does not know what’s in the controversial speeches, they do know how much she was paid for them.
She had previously taken heat for saying in June 2015 that she and Bill Clinton were “dead broke” when they left the White House in 2001 because her husband’s legal bills had put them in debt.
Clinton’s previous returns from 2007 through 2014 were already posted on her website.
The Clintons’ main sources of income were Bill Clinton’s paid speeches, to the tune of 5.2 million U.S. dollars, and a payment to Hillary Clinton from the publisher of her last book, Simon & Schuster, for 3 million USA dollars. Among other initiatives, she wants the U.S.to train 50,000 new computer science teachers over the next 10 years and to push green cards on foreign students earning advanced tech and science degrees from US colleges. Bill Clinton earned US$225,000 for a February speech sponsored by UBS Wealth Management, for example, and Hillary Clinton gave a speech for eBay in March for US$315,000. The rule states that anyone with an income over $1 million has to pay a minimum of 30% of their income in taxes.
The Clintons are millionaires, thanks to big businesses paying them sizable sums to speak at corporate events.
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The 40 page pdf released by the campaign shows that the Clintons payed $3.6 million in taxes, a tax rate of about 34 percent. That could cost the Clintons $10 million per year, based on the speech income Hillary Clinton averaged as a private citizen in 2013 and 2014. Over the last nine years, the Clintons have paid $US48 million in federal taxes and given $US16 million to charity. In 1991 and 1993, New Jersey gambling commission records indicate he paid little or no income taxes.
