Presidential Debate: Joe Biden Releases Tax Returns Ahead Of Showdown With Donald Trump

Joe Biden released his 2019 tax return Tuesday, showing he paid nearly $300,000 in federal taxes. The move came just hours before a presidential debate and after revelations President Donald Trump routinely pays little or no taxes.

Biden’s filings show he paid about 30% of his $985,000 income in federal taxes. The Democrat's campaign also released filings for running mate Sen. Kamala Harris that showed she paid $1.19 million in federal taxes on about $3.1 million in income.

“This is a historic level of transparency meant to give the American people faith, once again, that their leaders will look out for them and not their own bottom line,” Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, told reporters Tuesday.

The release by Biden was likely a strategic move, coming less than 48 hours after the New York Times published a bombshell investigation based on more than a decade’s worth of Trump’s tax returns, showing that he paid just $750 in individual federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017.

The Times also found that in 10 of 15 years, Trump paid no federal income taxes because his businesses lost hundreds of millions of dollars, which he was able to use to reduce his tax burden. Trump called the Times’ expose “fake news” but did not directly dispute any of the figures contained in it.

During his 2016 campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to release his taxes once elected president. After the election, however, he stated that people weren’t interested in his tax returns.