The tradition was broken by Donald Trump. It is brought up to date by Joe Biden, who uses it as an argument of confidence in his campaign against Donald Trump. The Democratic candidate made his tax return public on Monday April 15. This publication comes this year a few months before the November presidential election, which pits the current president against the Republican.
This non-obligatory practice is supposed to maintain citizens’ trust in their political leaders, and is practiced by other political figures.
According to their statement, the Bidens took home $619,976 in 2023, most of which came from the president’s $400,000 salary and his wife Jill Biden’s $85,985 compensation for her teaching job in Virginia, near the capital Washington. These revenues are up compared to previous years: nearly $580,000 in 2022 and around 610,000 in 2021.
“Be honest with the American people”
“President Biden believes that all tenants of the Oval Office must be open and honest with the American people,” the White House said in a statement. “The long tradition of annually releasing presidents’ tax returns must continue without interruption,” she added, a thinly veiled reference to the Trump era.
Famous business and media man before becoming the idol of the American right, Donald Trump refused to make his tax return public during his presidency which lasted from 2017 to 2021. But several of his declarations were ultimately published after a battle led by Democrats in Congress. And it emerged that, for several years, Donald Trump paid virtually no income tax, due to his business losses.
Taxation of the rich, a campaign theme
This strategy is a continuation of one of his campaign announcements: at the beginning of March, the Democrat announced in his State of the Union speech that he wanted to increase the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. He also spoke in favor of a minimum tax for billionaires.
“There are a thousand billionaires in the United States. Do you know what the average federal tax rate is for these billionaires? 8.2%! That’s far less than what the vast majority of Americans pay. No billionaire should pay a lower tax rate than a teacher, a garbage collector or a nurse! That’s why I proposed a 25% minimum tax for billionaires,” Joe Biden said.