Getty Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden delivers a speech at a local theater in Wilmington, Delaware on September 27, 2020.
Joe Biden paid $92,198 in federal taxes in 2016 and $3,742,974 in federal taxes in 2017, according to income tax returns posted on his campaign’s website. According to The New York Times, President Donald Trump paid $750 in federal taxes in 2016 and the same amount in 2017.
Trump’s tax returns for those years were leaked to The Times, according to the newspaper. Trump’s tax returns for 2018 and 2019 were not provided to The Times, according to the report. The newspaper reported that Trump has paid no federal income taxes in 10 of the last 15 years. Trump has repeatedly declined to release his tax returns on his own, citing an ongoing IRS audit. He is the first president since Watergate to not release his personal income tax returns. Biden has posted state and federal income tax returns for 2016, 2017 and 2018 on his campaign website. In 2018, Biden paid $1,528,208 in federal taxes.
Trump attacked The Times report on Twitter after it was published, tweeting, “The Fake News Media, just like Election time 2016, is bringing up my Taxes & all sorts of other nonsense with illegally obtained information & only bad intent. I paid many millions of dollars in taxes but was entitled, like everyone else, to depreciation & tax credits.”
Here are details on how much Joe Biden paid in taxes in 2016 and 2017:
Biden & His Wife Had $396,552 in Income in 2016 & Owed the IRS $1,031 When Filing Their Taxes
GettyDemocratic presidential nominee Joe Biden appears oh stage with his wife, Dr. Jill Biden.
Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, reported $396,552 in income in 2016, according to their federal tax return from that year. The Bidens paid $92,198 in taxes on that income, according to the return. They owed $1,031 to the IRS after filing their taxes, the return shows.
Biden was still vice president in 2016 and earned a salary of $230,700. The Bidens also reported income from Social Security benefits, pensions and annuities in 2016, along with real estate rental income and a small amount of business income, the returns show.
The Biden campaign has jumped on The Times report on Trump’s taxes in an effort to capitalize on the $750 in taxes Trump paid in 2016 and 2017. Biden’s campaign put out an ad comparing the income taxes Trump paid to what average Americans in other jobs paid in federal taxes. The campaign has also started to sell stickers on its website for $7.50 that read “I paid more income taxes than Donald Trump.”
At an event in mid-September, Biden, speaking before union members in Wisconsin, said, “I’ve dealt with guys like Trump my whole life … who do everything they can to avoid paying what they owe in taxes because they figure the rest of us can pick up the tab.”
Biden & His Wife Had $9,578,639 in Income in 2017 & Owed the IRS $1,666 After Filing Their Taxes
GettyDemocratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his wife Dr. Jill Biden participate in a conversation with parents and educators on September 3, 2020, in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.
In 2017, the Bidens’ income jumped substantially from $396,552 to $9,578,639, according to their tax return from that year. Joe and Jill Biden paid $3,742,974 in federal taxes on that income and owed the IRS $1,666 after filing their taxes, according to the return.
The jump in income came after Biden left the White House. Biden wrote a book, Promise Me, Dad, about his time as vice president and about his son Beau’s battle with cancer and his death. Both Bidens also began speaking engagements with fees that provided them income, according to The New York Times. The newspaper reported the couple signed a three-book deal with Flatiron Books for about $8 million. Joe Biden received fees as high as $234,820 for paid speeches, The Times reported.
In 2019, while Biden was still running for the Democratic presidential nomination, his spokesperson, Andrew Bates, issued a statement saying the millions the former vice president earned after leaving office had not changed his political goals. Bates told CNBC that Biden “grew up in a blue collar family that was forced to move away from home in order to make ends meet.”
Bates added, “Fighting for working families has been the defining cause of Joe Biden’s life and the first event of his campaign was hosted at a Pennsylvania union hall where he blasted Donald Trump’s tax breaks for the rich and big corporations. He’s running to restore the American middle class, with everybody — regardless of race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation — in on the deal this time.”
READ NEXT: The Latest COVID-19 Updates