Bidens paid 24.6 per cent taxes on USD610,702 earnings, returns show

President Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden earned USD610,702 during their first year in the White House and paid USD150,439 in federal income taxes.

That was a tax rate of 24.6 er cent for 2021, well over the average of around 14 per cent for all Americans.

The totals were similar to the Bidens' 2020 returns, when they reported earning USD607,336 as he ran for president. They reported a federal income tax rate of 25.9 per cent then.

The national median household income was USD67,521 in 2020, according to US Census data.

It's the second straight year Biden has released his tax returns from the White House, reestablishing a tradition that presidents make their filings public after President Donald Trump declined to do so.

Both this year and last were steep drops from 2019 for the Bidens, when they earned nearly USD1 million, primarily from book sales, speeches and their teaching positions at the University of Pennsylvania and Northern Virginia Community College.

Jill Biden still teaches in Virginia while serving as first lady. The returns show Biden earning USD378,333 as president — his USD400,000 annual salary minus the time before noon on Inauguration Day on January 20, 2021 — and his wife receiving USD67,116 for her teaching.

The couple gave USD17,394 to 10 different charities in 2021. The largest gift was USD5,000 to the Beau Biden Foundation, a nonprofit that works to combat child abuse named for their son, Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015 at age 46.

The Bidens also released their 2021 Delaware income tax return and reported paying USD30,765 in state income tax there.

The first lady released a Virginia return showing she paid USD2,721 in Virginia state income tax.

Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff released their 2021 tax filings, which showed them earning USD1,655,563 in 2021 and paying USD523,371 — a federal income tax rate of 31.6per cent.

Harris and Emhoff also paid USD120,517 in California income tax and USD2,044 in New York income tax.

The second gentleman, who teaches at Georgetown Law School, paid USD54,441 in District of Columbia income tax, and the couple contributed USD22,100 to charity in 2021.

Biden campaigned on the transparency of his personal finances, releasing 22 years of tax filings ahead of the 2020 election. It was a direct challenge to Trump, who argued for years that an audit prevented him from releasing his taxes — though the IRS had mandated for four-plus decades that the tax returns of sitting presidents and vice presidents be audited.

The New York Times later obtained Trump's tax records and reported that he paid just USD750 in federal income taxes during his first year in the White House.

IRS figures indicate that the average tax filer paid roughly USD12,200 in 2017, about 16 times what the former president paid.

The returns were released on April 15, traditionally the deadline for paying federal taxes. This year the deadline has been extended to Monday, April 18.