Biden releases 2019 taxes as pre-debate contrast with Trump

WASHINGTON » Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden paid nearly $288,000 in federal income taxes last year, according to returns he released just hours before his Tuesday night debate with President Donald Trump.

The move came following a report from The New York Times that Trump paid just $750 in income taxes in 2016, the year he ran for president, and in 2017, his first year in the White House.

Biden and his wife, Jill, along with Biden’s running mate, California Sen.

Kamala Harris, released their 2019 federal and state returns as the president contends with the political fallout from a series of Times reports about Trump’s long-hidden tax returns. The Times also reported that Trump paid no income tax at all in 10 of the 15 years prior to 2017.

The Bidens’ payment of $287,693 to the federal government in 2019 showed a substantial drop fromthe $1.5 million they paid in income taxes in 2018, reflecting a decline in Biden’s book revenue, his decision to run for the presidency and his leave of absence from an academic post at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

After paying $91,000 in 2016, Biden’s last year as vice president in the Obama administration, the Bidens paid $3.7 million to the government in 2017, largely because of income from book deals. Their latest return shows that the couple’s adjusted gross earnings of $985,233 came from his vacated Penn position, Jill Biden’s community college teaching job and corporate entities that hold their speaking and writing payments.

Harris and her husband, attorney Douglas Emhoff, paid $1,185,628 in combined federal and state taxes on earnings of $3,018,127.