US President Barack Obama Friday released his tax return, showing he earned nearly $800,000 last year, leveraging the annual rite to launch a new attack on his wealthy Republican foe Mitt Romney. Obama, and Vice President Joe Biden, cranking up their campaign for a second term ahead of November's election, have now made their tax returns public for each year going back to 2000.
They complain that Romney, a multi-millionaire venture capitalist they are trying to portray as oblivious to the economic struggles of middle class American families, has not done the same. In 2010, Romney paid a lower tax rate than many middle class Americans - 13.9 percent - because most of his income was from investments and not salary, meaning he falls under a different system of taxation.
Obama contends that such treatment of the wealthy is unfair, and is pushing a proposal called the Buffett rule, which would require people earning more than $1 million a year to pay 30 percent in taxes. The president's tax return showed that he and First Lady Michelle Obama reported $789,674 for 2011 in gross adjusted income and paid $162,074 to the Internal Revenue Service at an effective federal tax rate of 20.5 percent.
Around half of Obama's income came from his presidential salary of $400,000 and the rest was from income from his best-selling books. The first couple donated $172,130 to charity. Biden and his wife Jill, a community college professor, reported earning $379,035 in 2011 and paid $87,900 in federal income taxes.
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