After weeks of pressuring Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to reveal his tax returns, Hillary Clinton released her income tax returns on Friday.
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The Clintons’ main sources of income were Mr Clinton’s paid speeches, to the tune of $5.2 million (AU$6.8 million), and a payment to Mrs Clinton from the publisher of her last book, Simon & Schuster, for AU$3.9 million.
Over the last decade, the couple has donated 7.5 per cent of their income to charity, the campaign said, and paid an effective tax rate of 25.6 per cent past year.
“Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine continue to set the standard for financial transparency”, Clinton campaign communication director Jennifer Palmieri said Friday.
“Here’s a pretty incredible fact: there is a non-zero chance that Donald Trump isn’t paying *any* taxes”, Ms Clinton tweeted, minutes after releasing her own returns.
When the two major candidates for president are both wealthy beyond the imagination of most Americans, do their tax returns matter?
All major United States presidential candidates in modern history have released their returns. The Clintons over the years have made public details of their income taxes as far back as 1977, the campaign said.
Indeed, Clinton released her latest documents, as well as those of her running mate, Democratic Sen. Her opponent’s refusal to release his own returns makes Clinton’s wealth and its origins harder for Republicans to assail.
According to an IRS study based on the decade ending 2012, the average federal tax rate for the top 0.001 percent of earners that year – those earning at least $62 million – was 17.6 percent.
Clinton’s campaign also released a list of speeches that she delivered in 2013, which showed that she gave 41 addresses for fees ranging from $225,000 to $400,000. That doesn’t necessarily mean the group isn’t doing real charity work, but it does show the Clintons get some unusual personal benefits from their charitable giving that most people who give to charity would not. The agency, while not indicating whether the Republican presidential nominee is being audited, has said anyone can release their returns, under audit or not. The bulk of the couple’s philanthropic gifts went, of course, to the Clinton Family Foundation.
Federal tax rates have become an issue in the presidential election. Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has formally accepted the U.S. Democratic Party’ s nomination for president and pledged more economic opportunities for Americans and “steady leadership”.
Graffiti depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
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The Clintons had a total income in 2015 of about $10.7 million. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and his wife released 10 years of returns, showing they had an effective federal tax rate ranging between 13.4 percent and 24 percent over that span. Their main investment was a low-priced index mutual fund, and the Clintons reported dividend and interest income of $109,000.
