Presidential Candidate Tax Returns Analyzed By Roni Deutch

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D)

Although Senator Clinton only takes in $165,200 per year from her wages as a U.S. Senator, her and her husband (President Bill Clinton) made millions from speaking engagements, book deals, and interest from their massive fortune. Over the last 7 years, the Clintons have an adjusted gross income of nearly $110 million. Almost half of this comes from former President Bill Clinton’s speaking engagements. According to their returns, the Clinton’s have paid a total of $33,783,507 in taxes, which puts them at an average tax rate of 31%. This rate is much higher then the average of only 20% for Americans making over $10 million.


Over the past seven years the Clinton’s have donated $10,256,741, which is the highest contributions of all the remaining presidential candidates. They have given away a total of barely under 10% of their adjusted gross income (AGI).

Sen. Barack Obama (D)

Senator Obama and his wife have the lowest estimated net worth of the three final presidential hopefuls. Most of their relatively small fortune has been accumulated in the past few years. In 2000 the Obamas combined total income was $240,505 which includes Barack’s salary as a new state senator and his wife’s salary from working in a hospital. Their wages stayed relatively constant until 2005 when Barack made over $1.2 million from author fees and his wife’s salary increased to over $300,000.

An important thing to note about Obamas’ return is the extremely small percent of their AGI that they donate to charities. In 2001 and 2002 they donated less then 0.5% of their income, and future years donations were not much better. When asked about their low donations, an Obama spokesperson claimed, "as new parents who were paying off their large student loans, giving $10,000 to charity [from 2000 to 2004] was as generous as they could be at the time." However, it is interesting to note that they made over $1.4 million in 2005 but still donated less than 5% of their AGI to charity. This is a far lower percent than the Clintons donations in 6 of the past 7 years.

Sen. John McCain (R)

Although Senator McCain may have the highest estimated net worth of the remaining candidates, his income according to his tax returns is much, much lower. Why? Because McCain is the only of the remaining candidates to file a separate return from his much wealthier wife. To be fair, the couple has filed separate returns for all but one of their 27 years of marriage. However, no information or summary of his wife’s fortune has yet been made public. Additionally, McCain is the only candidate to only release his two most recent returns. The Clintons have made their returns dating back to 1992 public, and the Obamas have done so dating back to 2000.

In 2006 and 2007 McCain’s AGI was comparably low at just $338,809 and $386,527 respectively. The majority of his income comes for the $165,200 a year he earns as an U.S. Senator and his $54,000 Navy pension. As you can see from the chart below, due to his lower income, McCain donated the highest percent of his income out of the remaining candidates. Although his $202,225 donations in 2006 and 2007 totaled about 5% of the Clinton’s $4,580,503 total donations.

By: roni deutch

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The Tax Lady the Roni Deutch opened her law firm Roni Lynn Deutch, A Professional Tax Corporation to help taxpayers across the nation resolve their IRS tax problems. Nearly two years ago she launched Roni Deutch: The Tax Lady Blog to discuss her views on taxes and the economy.

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