Bidens’ tax returns show income of nearly $580,000 last year

WASHINGTON - President Biden and first lady Jill Biden on Tuesday released their 2022 tax returns, which showed they had a federal adjusted gross income of $579,514 and paid $169,820 in total taxes, an effective tax rate of 23.8 percent.

The White House announced the returns on the April 18 U.S. tax filing deadline in a relatively pedestrian news release - and made a point of saying that Biden, who served more that three decades in the Senate, has now “shared a total of 25 years of tax returns with the American public.”

That was a pointed contrast with Donald Trump, Biden’s immediate predecessor and possible future opponent. Trump never voluntarily released his tax returns as a presidential candidate or commander in chief, bucking a decades-old tradition for those seeking and occupying the nation’s highest office.

Biden has stressed that his presidency would represent a return to presidential norms and traditions, including shoring up alliances, speaking out against authoritarianism and, as Tuesday’s release suggests, detailing his obligations to Uncle Sam.

The Bidens contributed $20,180 to 20 different charities in 2022, the returns show. The largest donation, $5,000, was to the Beau Biden Foundation, which works to protect children from abuse. The charity was set up in honor of Biden’s late son, the former attorney general of Delaware, who died of cancer in 2015.

The first couple also donated $2,000 to the National Fraternal Order of Police Foundation and $1,680 to St. Joseph on the Brandywine, their home church parish, which the president routinely visits during weekends at home in Delaware. Biden, a lifelong Catholic, attends Mass on a weekly basis.

In 2021, Biden’s first year as president, the Bidens reported a federal adjusted gross income of $610,702 and federal income tax payments of $150,439, at an effective rate of 24.6 percent.

While the Bidens are now millionaires, the president has long stressed his middle-class background, including his upbringing in Scranton, Pa., and his family’s financial struggles, which factored into their relocation to Delaware. In his speeches, the president periodically says that he “had the great pleasure of being listed as the poorest man in Congress for 36 years.”

He also speaks repeatedly of having taken the Amtrak home every night when he was in the Senate as he commuted back and forth between the capital and his home in Delaware.

Earlier on Tuesday, when Biden signed an executive order on child care and elder care, he recounted how his sister moved in with him after his first wife died because he needed help raising his two sons on a senator’s salary. Those memories, he has said, factored into his vow to never raise taxes on people making less than $400,000 a year.

The White House on Tuesday also released the federal returns of Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff, as well as their state returns for California and the District of Columbia. In total, Harris has released 19 years of tax returns during her long career in public service.

Harris and Emhoff reported federal adjusted gross income of $456,918 and a payment of $93,570 in federal income tax for 2022, an effective federal income tax rate of 20.5 percent.

A year earlier, Harris and Emhoff reported a federal adjusted gross income of $1,655,563 with an effective tax rate of 31.6 percent. A large chunk of that income was Emhoff’s earnings from DLA Piper and Venable, the law firms where he worked before leaving the legal field when Harris was elected vice president.

In 2022, the second couple contributed $23,000 to charity, including $5,000 apiece to Howard University, where Harris obtained her bachelor’s degree, and the University of Southern California, where Emhoff earned his law degree.

Trump, during his presidency, vigorously fought efforts by congressional Democrats and prosecutors to obtain his tax records, saying he could not release them because he was under audit. In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled against Trump and in favor of a Manhattan district attorney who was seeking the documents.