Biden releases his 2020 tax returns

ILLINOIS, US

US President Joe Biden released his tax returns on Monday, a normally routine move for presidents that turned controversial under his predecessor, Donald Trump.

The White House tax release showed that Biden's income dropped significantly in 2020 from the year before, down nearly $1 million to $607,336. The drop happened as Biden gave up on paid speaking engagements in order to hit the campaign trail for president.

The Bidens paid $157,414 in taxes in 2020, and reported holding cash and investments totaling between $1.2 million and $2.88 million. That's also down from their 2019 filing, according to Bloomberg financial news.

Trump refused to release his tax returns, claiming multiple times that he could not do so because he was under audit. He also claimed multiple times that he would eventually release his tax information, but never did. He was the only president since the 1970's Watergate era to refuse to release his taxes.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki noted on Monday that Biden would always make his tax returns public "as we believe is the transparent approach and what the public expects." She added that Biden would release his returns even if he were under audit, "as should be expected of every President of the United States."

Last fall, The New York Times published a record of Trump's tax returns over the last 15 years and found that Trump paid no taxes in 10 of those years, and only paid $750 each in 2016 and 2017. Trump denied the story and said he paid "a lot" in state income taxes, but he also once said that if he did not pay much in taxes, it meant he was "smart".

Monday was the tax filing deadline in the United States, pushed back a month later than normal to account for the COVID-19 crisis.