Bidens Report Earning $620,000 and Paying $181,000 in Taxes in 2023
President Biden and Jill Biden, the first lady, reported earning roughly $620,000 in 2023, releasing their joint tax return for the third straight year of Mr. Biden’s presidency and the 26th time throughout his political career.
The couple’s tax return, released on Monday evening by the White House, showed that Mr. Biden and Dr. Biden paid just over $181,000 in state and federal taxes, with an effective federal income tax rate of nearly 24 percent.
Their federal gross income in 2023 was nearly 7 percent higher than the $580,000 they reported in 2022, largely a result of increased taxable interest income this year stemming from higher interest rates.
The bulk of their income came from the $400,000 salary that Mr. Biden earned as president, and Dr. Biden’s salary of $85,985 from Northern Virginia Community College, where she is an English professor. The president’s salary is set by Congress and has been constant since 2001.
The jump in income last year was largely attributable to the $129,876 in taxable interest, pensions, annuities, IRA distributions and Social Security benefits that the couple claimed, up significantly from the $92,087 reported last year.
Dr. Biden also earned $4,115 in royalties from books she has written, while the president reported no royalties.
In releasing his tax return this year, Mr. Biden once again sought to contrast himself with former President Donald J. Trump, who resisted releasing his returns throughout his tenure as president.
Mr. Trump’s returns were made public at the end of 2022 by the House Ways and Means Committee after a protracted legal battle. They showed that he paid a total of $1.1 million in federal income taxes during the first three years of his presidency, but paid no tax in 2020.
The New York Times obtained tax documents of Mr. Trump’s in 2020, which revealed that he paid just $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency and again during his first year as president. They also showed that Mr. Trump had paid no income tax in 10 separate years because of tax write-offs and large business losses he declared.
“President Biden believes that all occupants of the Oval Office should be open and honest with the American people, and that the longstanding tradition of annually releasing presidential tax returns should continue unbroken,” the White House said in a statement.
For 2023, the Bidens reported giving $20,477 to 17 charities, including the church Mr. Biden regularly attends in Wilmington, Del., and the National Fraternal Order of Police Foundation.
They also reported an annual $5,000 donation to the Beau Biden Foundation, which is named in honor of Mr. Biden’s son who died of brain cancer in 2015.
Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, also released their 2023 return. It showed that they paid $88,570 in federal income tax on total income of $450,299, an effective federal income tax rate of 19.7 percent, and more or less the same as what they reported last year.
They paid an additional $26,766 in income taxes to California and the District of Columbia and contributed $23,026 to charity.