Saturday, April 05, 2008

Clinton tax returns

Good for the Clintons. They're prosperous and they earned their millions.

McClatchy
reported (with emphasis):

Hillary Clinton's salary as a New York senator totaled $1 million over those years, while her book income was $10.46 million. Most of the book money came from her 2003 memoir "Living History".

The documents made public Friday didn't include the Clinton's 2007 returns; they provided a summary instead. The couple plans to file for an extension.

The release of the returns came after Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, Clinton's rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, and several good government groups have criticized Clinton for delaying the release of her tax information.

Clinton campaign officials had promised to release the information around the April 15 income tax filing deadline.

Clinton officials maintained that between the filings that were made public when Bill Clinton was president and their pre-White House tax returns that were public through the Whitewater land deal investigation, the Clintons have the most transparent finances of all the presidential candidates.

"This would appear to be about as complete a picture of the Clintons' finances as you can construct," said Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit group that examines money and politics.

"It's very clear that they are very wealthy, but that's not news. But we have a clearer picture of the sources of their income."

Obama released his 2000 to 2006 returns last week. They showed that his family income rose from $240,000 in 2000 to nearly $1 million in 2006.

The Illinois senator has been criticized for his relatively paltry charitable contributions in earlier years — $2,500 in 2004 from an income of $207,000, for instance. In 2006, the Obamas gave $60,000 to charities from an income of $999,000.

Obama and Arizona Sen. John McCain haven't released their 2007 returns.

No 10% tither is Obama, eh? Oh, what does religion have to do with it? Nothing. Trinity UCC probably didn't give it a second thought. M'yeah.