Last Friday, Hillary Clinton released the last eight years worth of tax returns for her and her family. It shows that she and Bill earned about $141 million dollars (an adjusted gross income of $139.1 million) during that eight year period -- and they paid about $43 million in federal income taxes. Over the eight year period, that's an effective tax rate of about 31% (and an effective tax rate of 35.7% for just last year). They gave $15 million to charity over the eight year period.Jeb Bush has also released tax returns -- for the last 33 years (although many of them were already public). Bush made $7.4 million in the last year, and over the 33 year period paid an average tax rate of about 36%. Like the Clinton's, he and his wife are multi-millionaires.
I don't have much of a gripe about the tax rates paid by both of these candidates. They both paid a far higher rate than middle income Americans, and the rate being less than the top rate can easily be accounted for by charitable deductions. It's far different than the 13% tax rate paid by Mitt Romney (on an income of more than $20 million a year).
The question I have is -- why hasn't Donald Trump released his tax returns for the last few years? He claims to be a serious candidate, and in fact, is leading in all the national polls. Isn't it time he revealed the tax rate he has been paying?
The only clue we have to his tax rate comes from his own lips, in an interview with CBS News back in 2011. At that time he claimed to be paying an effective tax rate of 17%. Is that the real figure? Is it even lower? Why won't he release the returns? Is he afraid he'll garner negative publicity (like Romney did in 2012) by admitting he's paying a lower effective rate than a middle income taxpayer?
