Political capital: Clintons earned $140m in eight years

Democratic US presidential contender Hillary and former president Bill release eight years of federal tax records.

Democratic U.S presidential candidate Hillary Clinton makes a speech on Cuban relations at Florida International University in Miami
Clinton said she and her husband paid an effective federal tax rate of 35.7 percent last year [Reuters]

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has released eight years of tax records, saying that she and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, have paid nearly $44m in federal taxes since 2007.

Their adjusted gross income over the period was just shy of $140m. With deductions factored in, their taxable income was about $111m.

In a statement accompanying her tax records on Friday, Clinton said she and her husband paid an effective federal tax rate of 35.7 percent last year and that the rate went up to 45.8 percent when state and local taxes were figured in.

Clinton, the front-runner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, released her family’s tax returns from 2007 to 2014.

Hillary Clinton bids to become the first female US president

She said they paid $43,885,310 in federal taxes and made $14,959,450 in charitable contributions.

“We’ve come a long way from my days going door-to-door for the Children’s Defense Fund and earning $16,450 as a young law professor in Arkansas, and we owe it to the opportunities America provides,” she said.

The Clintons’ vast wealth has become an issue in a 2016 presidential race that has focused on how to reduce income inequality.

The Clintons in 2013 each gave a series of speeches that brought in income of about $22.85m. This included $9.68m from Hillary’s speeches and $13.17m from Bill’s speeches.

Most of Hillary Clinton’s speeches were $225,000 apiece or more. Bill Clinton’s ranged in price from $125,000 to $750,000 each, the disclosures showed.

The enormous tax bill dwarfed the still-sizeable $15m that Republican presidential contender Jeb Bush said he has paid over the past 33 years, when he released his tax records in June.


OPINION: Hillary Clinton for the world?


Coverage of US presidential contenders’ tax returns and wealth have long been major campaign issues.

During the 2012 presidential race, both Democrats and Republicans accused Mitt Romney of preying on companies during his years at the head of equity firm Bain Capital, reaping huge profits while gutting firms and erasing jobs.

Barack Obama then used wealthy rival Romney’s hesitancy to release his tax records to win political points during the thrust of the campaign.

Clinton released her tax returns on Friday, as her physician declared her healthy and “fit to serve” as president, with no lingering effects from a 2012 concussion that caused a health scare when she was secretary of state.

Source: Al Jazeera, News Agencies