Biden and Harris release tax returns to troll Trump ahead of first presidential debate

Mr Biden and his wife, Dr Jill Biden, paid nearly $300,000 in federal taxes in 2019

Democratic candidate Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris have released their state and federal tax returns ahead of the first presidential debate following reports of how little Donald Trump paid to the federal government in recent years. 

The Biden campaign released online Mr Biden’s federal and Delaware tax returns from 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. Mr Biden said 22 years of tax returns would be available for the public to review in total. 

Additionally, Ms Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff, released their federal and California tax returns from 2019. 

Mr Biden and his wife, Dr Jill Biden, reported receiving $985,233 in adjusted gross income in 2019, of which they paid nearly $300,000 in federal taxes. In 2019, Ms Harris and her husband reported receiving just over $3m in adjusted gross income, and they owed $1,185,628 in taxes. 

This starkly contrasted what Mr Trump paid to the federal government based on a bombshell report from The New York Times. 

According to the report, Mr Trump failed to pay federal taxes in recent years and paid just $750 in 2016 and 2017. The president avoided paying taxes from 10 of the 15 years reviewed by the newspaper because his businesses lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, allowing him to reduce his tax burden. 

The report also detailed a series of questionable expenses Mr Trump wrote off, including nearly $700,000 as a “consulting fee” to his daughter Ivanka Trump and $70,000 for hair styling. 

Mr Trump dismissed the report as inaccurate but has declined to detail the specific errors. 

The president, in stark contrast to past presidents, has refused to release his tax returns on his own to the American public. His campaign has claimed he’s not released his returns as they are currently under audit. 

The Biden campaign choosing to release Mr Biden and Ms Harris’ taxes comes just 48 hours after the bombshell report about the president’s taxes was released and hours before the first presidential election. 

“The American people deserve transparency from their leaders, it's why as of today, I've released 22 years of my tax returns,” Mr Biden wrote in a tweet. 

When speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Kate Bedingfield, Mr Biden’s deputy campaign manager and communications director, alluded to the move as a way to show how the former vice president stands for “honesty and transparency” compared to Mr Trump. 

“Look, Trump’s tax returns and what we learned from that reporting I think reinforces what we already knew about Donald Trump, which is that he looks down on working people,” Ms Bedingfield said.

“It reinforces how much of a choice there is in this campaign between Scranton and Park Avenue,” she added. Mr Biden has made the same comparison between himself and Mr Trump in recent weeks while on the campaign trail.