Clinton released her 2015 federal income tax return on Friday in a move to pressure Trump to release his returns.
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The Trump campaign dismissed Clinton’s action, saying: “This document release is nothing more than an attempt at distraction and misdirection” from controversy about her use of a private email server when she was secretary of state. The top-line numbers: Hillary and Bill Clinton earned a combined $10.6 million a year ago, roughly $6 million of which came from speaking fees paid by corporations and other organizations.
The latest return, 40 pages long, showed the Clintons donated more than $US1 million, or almost 10% of their gross income, to charity.
Donald Trump, despite facing a great deal of criticism over the issue, still hasn’t released his tax returns, something the Clinton campaign continues to try and draw negative attention to.
All major United States presidential candidates in modern history have released their returns.
The returns reveal where the Clintons’ money came from past year, most of which Hillary Clinton spent on the trail after kicking off her campaign in April 2015.
Trump, a NY businessman, and his lawyers have cited an audit by the Internal Revenue Service as a reason for his refusal to release his returns.
Kaine and his wife, Anne Holton, paid an effective federal tax rate of 20.3 percent in 2015, according to the news release.
Over the course of their careers the Clintons have published all of their tax returns since 1977.
However, the disclosure of Clinton’s wealth, mainly coming from highly-paid speeches delivered to financial institutions, might also raise concerns about whether she could really defend interests of middle-class families and take a tough stance against Wall Street as she has promised.
The filing shows that the Clintons paid a federal tax rate of 34.2 percent in 2015.
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It also quotes Trump himself, from a 2012 interview about former candidate Mitt Romney’s returns: “If you didn’t see the tax returns, you would think there is nearly, like, something wrong. They saw two little notes with a “C” on it”, Clinton said at the Asian American Journalists Association event Friday in Las Vegas. Their main investment was a low-priced index mutual fund, and the Clintons reported dividend and interest income of $109,000. Her husband made money in a similar fashion: about $29,000 from his books, about $5.25 million from speaking engagements, and more than $1.5 million in consulting fees. Several former students have sued a school operated by the company, alleging fraud. His office said he had “engaged with GEMS students and faculty around the world and assisted the Varkey GEMS Foundation in its efforts to increase access to education to underprivileged children”.
