Biden and first lady earn more than $570,000 in 2022

US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden they grossed $579,514 in 2022, according to their tax return the latest, released this Tuesday. For these revenues, they had to pay about $137,658 in federal tax, 23.8%, according to a statement from the White House collected by Efe.

In addition, the president and first lady paid 29,023 in taxes in Delaware, where they reside, and 3,139 in Virginia, since Jill Biden works as a college professor in that state, near Washington. The presidential couple also donated $20,180 to 20 altruistic organizations. The largest donation, of $5,000, went to the Beau Biden Foundation, dedicated to the fight against child abuse and created in honor of the president’s eldest son, who died of cancer in 2015.

In 2021, the Bidens reported gross income of more than $610,000, of which they paid $150,400 in federal taxes. In recent years, the presidential couple has reported significantly lower incomes than in previous yearssince they’ve made about $16.5 million since Biden left the vice presidency in 2017 through 2019, mostly through paid conferences and publishing deals.

In a press release, the White House pointed out that it seeks to disclose these documents “to once again demonstrate its commitment to transparency”. Biden’s predecessor, Republican Donald Trump (2017-2021), refused to make his statements public until after a long legal battle, a congressional committee won approval from the Constitutional Court to publish them.

The battle over those statements dates back to 2019, when the Ways and Means Committee issued a legal subpoena for access to that information as part of its investigation into possible tax violations by Trump. He based the petition on a 1924 law allowing the heads of certain congressional committeesincluding ways and means, to request the Secretary of the Treasury and the US Department of the Treasury to release the tax returns of any taxpayer.

Trump was the first American president since Gerald Ford (1974-1977) who did not publish his tax return every year, a tradition that their predecessors considered part of their duty of transparency and responsibility towards the people.

Except for the Bidens, The White House also released Vice President Kamala Harris’ tax return, and her husband, Doug Emhoff. The vice presidential couple reported income of $456,918 in 2022, of which they paid $93,570 in federal taxes, 20.5%.

The figure is well below the more than $1.5 million it received in 2021, when Emhoff was still working as a lawyer. In 2022, the vice president and her husband paid $17,612 in state taxes to California. and $9,697 for the District of Columbia. In addition, they donated $23.00 to charities.