CLEVELAND - Hours before his first debate with U.S. President Donald Trump, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Tuesday released his 2019 tax returns and his campaign called on Trump, who has come under fire for not releasing his returns, to do the same.
Biden, due to share the stage with his Republican opponent on Tuesday evening in Cleveland, Ohio, took the step two days after the New York Times reported Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017 - and none in 10 of the previous 15 years - following years of reporting steep losses from business enterprises.
Trump had long sought to keep his personal financial records secret.
Biden’s taxes showed that he and his wife Jill paid more than $346,000 in federal taxes and other payments for 2019 on an income of nearly $985,000 before seeking a refund of nearly $47,000 they said they had overpaid the government.
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 lines,” Biden’s deputy campaign manager, Kate Bedingfield, said on a call with reporters.
“Mr. President, release your tax returns or shut up,” Bedingfield added.
With more than a million Americans already casting early ballots and time running out to change minds or influence the small sliver of undecided voters, the stakes are enormous as the two White House candidates take the stage five weeks before the Nov. 3 election.
The 90-minute debate, with a limited and socially distanced in-person audience due to the coronavirus pandemic, will begin at 9 p.m. EDT (0100 GMT on Wednesday) at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, with Chris Wallace of Fox News serving as the moderator. It is the first of three scheduled debates.
Trump arrived in Cleveland aboard Air Force One, and finished a 20-minute preview visit to the debate venue shortly before Biden landed in the city with some of his top advisers: Jake Sullivan, Ron Klain, Mike Donilon, and sister Valerie Biden Owens.
Biden went directly to the debate pavilion for his own walk-through.
Source-Reuters
