As her billionaire rival Donald Trump has steadfastly refused to release his own, multi-millionaire Hillary Clinton sought to highlight her opponent’s financial obfuscation on Friday by making her own family’s 2015 tax returns public.
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The Clintons have paid more than $43 million in federal taxes and more than $14 million in charitable contributions since 2007, according to the campaign’s website.
In fact, the most recent survey, by Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind, gave Clinton her largest lead of the campaign, 21 points. Almost 96 percent of the Clintons’ $1.04 million in charitable contributions went to their own Clinton Foundation. Under Trump’s plan, an estimated 63 percent of low-and-middle-class Americans would pay no federal income taxes at all.
The release is part of an effort to undercut Trump’s character by questioning the celebrity businessman’s record.
Trump has said that he’s under an audit by the Internal Revenue Service and won’t release his returns until that audit is concluded – which may not happen before the November 8 election.
Kaine also released his returns dating to 2006, while the Clintons released all of their annual tax returns going back to 1977.
Trump turned a deaf ear to calls from his critics for his tax returns at a campaign rally Friday in Pennsylvania, a key swing state where he is behind Clinton in the polls.
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.
The Clinton campaign immediately seized on Trump’s remarks, criticizing the bellicose New Yorker for instigating violence.
“Go home to mom. She’s voting for Trump”.
And she claimed that Republican nominee Donald Trump’s tax plan would have a negative downstream impact on healthcare. Obama repeatedly used Romney’s business dealings against him and seized upon the former MA governor’s reluctance to release certain tax records. Tim Kaine, and his wife Anne Holton had a little more than $313,000 in gross income and paid a total of 25.6 percent in taxes. Their 2015 adjusted gross income was $313,441, based nearly entirely on their salaries – his as a USA senator from Virginia and hers as the state’s secretary of education. Over 60% of the Clintons’ $10.6 million income comes from speeches.
Trump has said he is now under audit and won’t release the documents until the audit wraps.
Federal tax rates have become an issue in the presidential election. The graphic included in the tweet added, “We don’t know for sure because he won’t release his tax returns”.
The Trump campaign was quick to respond by challenging Ms. Clinton on the 33,000 e-mails of hers as the Secretary of State that has been deleted. Republicans have seized upon the millions in speaking fees and a tone-deaf comment by Clinton in a 2014 interview that she was “dead broke” after leaving the White House in 2001. The Clintons’ combined earnings from speeches previous year clocked in at $5.5 million – well shy of the $9 million Bill Clinton earned in 2007 alone.
The Clintons’ main sources of income were Bill Clinton’s paid speeches, to the tune of $5.2 million, and a payment to Hillary Clinton from the publisher of her last book, Simon & Schuster, for $3 million.
An Associated Press investigation found that at least 60 firms and organizations that had sponsored Clinton speeches had lobbied the us government at some point during the Obama administration. She commanded her highest rate from EBay, which paid her $315,000 for a March 2015 address in San Jose. The couple earned more than $10 million in 2015, the documents say. It’s a great way to make money, but it also comes with questions about whether the Clintons are too tied to corporate cash. Several former students have sued a school operated by the company, alleging fraud.
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Hillary Clinton clearly dialed back her paid speaking activity a year ago.
