President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden marked Tax Day by releasing their tax returns to the public, a move the White House billed as a “new record” in transparency as Biden sets off to Pennsylvania to campaign on the issue. 

What You Need To Know

  • President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden marked Tax Day by releasing their tax returns to the public as Biden is set to campaign on his tax policy agenda in Scranton on Tuesday
  • The returns released on Monday showed the Bidens earned $619,976 in 2023, an increase of about 7% from the $579,514 they made in 2022
  • The pair, who filed their income tax return jointly, paid $146,629 or 23.7% of their earnings on federal income tax, the returns showed
  • Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff also released their return, which shows the second couple bringing in $450,299 in income in 2023 and paying $88,570 in federal income tax, a rate of 19.7%

The returns released on Monday showed the Bidens earned $619,976 in 2023, an increase of about 7% from the $579,514 they made in 2022.

Most of that income was made up of President Biden’s $400,000 salary as president. Dr. Biden, the first spouse of a president to keep a career outside of the White House, earned $85,985 as a professor at Northern Virginia Community College. The sources of the rest of the income included pensions and interest on investments. 

The pair, who filed their income tax return jointly, paid $146,629 or 23.7% of their earnings on federal income tax, the returns showed. 

“President Biden believes that all occupants of the Oval Office should be open and honest with the American people, and that the longstanding tradition of annually releasing presidential tax returns should continue unbroken,” the White House said in a statement, adding that Biden has shared 26 years of his tax returns with the public. 

The filing also showed the first couple donated nearly $20,500 to 17 charities, including the Beau Biden Foundation, named after the first couple’s late son. 

Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff also released their return, which shows the second couple bringing in $450,299 in income in 2023 and paying $88,570 in federal income tax, a rate of 19.7%. 

Harris and Emhoff, according to their return, donated about $23,000 to charity last year. 

This marks 20 years of Harris – who previously served in the senate as well as California’s attorney general and a district attorney in the state – releasing her return, according to the White House. 

The White House’s emphasis on transparency could be seen as an indirect reference to former President Donald Trump who did not release his returns while occupying the Oval Office.

In 2022, however, Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee released six years of the former president’s returns. 

In 2018, Trump earned more than $24 million and paid about 4% of that in federal income taxes. The congressional panel also found that the IRS delayed legally mandated audits of Trump during his presidency, with the panel concluding the audit process was " dormant, at best.”

Trump has maintained that his tax records are complicated because of his use of various tax credits and past business losses, which in some cases have allowed him to avoid taxes. He also previously declined to release his tax returns under the claim that the IRS was auditing him for pre-presidential filings.

Biden on Tuesday is stopping in his birth town of Scranton in battleground Pennsylvania to lay out his tax policy agenda, where he will seek to draw a sharp contrast between himself and his predecessor and likely 2024 rival Trump.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.