Why did Bidens' income fall by $377, 897 in 2020? Here's how much they will still have to pay in wealth taxes
President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden saw a drastic plunge in their annual income, as revealed by the 2020 tax return filed by the president recently. While the Bidens declared earnings of $985,233 in 2019, their latest tax returns have estimated a fall in income by over $300,000. Their present income has come down to $607,336.
The reduction is quite noteworthy considering the fact that the couple declared a cumulative income of over $11 million in the past few years. According to Daily Mail, they had even earned as much as $190,000 to deliver a speech. A lot of factors are responsible for the reduction in their family income, ranging from personal obligations to a raging pandemic. However, their income will still come under the purview of tax increases which Biden is pushing on the country's wealthiest.
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What caused reduction in Bidens' income?
For 17 years prior to joining politics full-time, Joe Biden used to teach constitutional law as an adjunct professor at Widener University Law School in Delaware. He also took part in lucrative speaking gigs, which fetched a sizeable income for the Biden household. In addition, his wife, Dr Jill Biden, works as a teacher of English at the Northern Virginia Community College.
Joe Biden's income reached its peak in 18 years after he left the White House in 2016, as the Vice-President to outgoing President Barack Obama. Both Joe and Jill Biden landed book deals worth millions, including their memoir at $8 Million. Around the same time, Joe Biden was appointed as an educator at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2017, the couple declared a staggering $11.1 Million in earnings, followed by $4.6 Million in 2018. However, as Biden entered the presidential campaign full-time, he took an unpaid leave of absence from the university and his other gigs also took a backseat - causing a drastic drop in their income.
The tax returns for 2020 filed by the Bidens show that $260,000 of their income came from pensions and investments while another $45,836 in social security benefits. Jill Biden's teaching work brought in around $212,681, while $90,854 was earned from real estate and business and $5,930 came from taxable interest. According to Daily Mail, though the latest average income tax rate is just over 14%, the Bidens paid $157,414 in federal income tax at the rate of around 25.9%.
How much wealth tax will Biden pay?
President Biden shared his tax returns with the public, contrary to his predecessor Donald Trump, who continually refused to release his tax data while it was subject to an audit.
"Today, the president released his 2020 federal income tax return, continuing an almost uninterrupted tradition. With this release, the President has shared a total of 23 years of tax returns with the American public," read a statement issued by the White House.
Despite the decrease, their income is still more than the $400,000 taxable threshold set by the president for the wealthiest section of the American population.
The American Families plan aims to raise over $1.5 trillion in a decade by increasing the tax amounts of the top 1% of America's wealthy. This money, in turn, will help fund education, child care, and paid leave for workers. According to CNBC, the Biden tax plan proposes a top income tax rate of 39.6% on wealthy households with over $540,000 of income.
Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff also released their income details, which showed that the couple earned more than $1.8 million in 2020. Most of the income came from Emhoff's job as a law partner at the firm DLA Piper.
