Here’s Where to Find Every 2020 Presidential Candidate’s Tax Returns (If They’ve Released Them)
The 2020 presidential race is officially underway, and that means it's time to talk tax returns.
President Donald Trump notwithstanding, almost all major party nominees for the past four decades have released some sort of tax documents in their bid for the Oval Office. As the field of 2020 candidates grows increasingly crowded, people like Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris are taking part in the tradition — and using their disclosures to criticize Trump's decision to keep his finances secret. (More on that below.)
Although candidates are not required to produce their tax returns, it's become expected in recent elections as a show of transparency. But the releases are often piecemeal, making the documents hard to track down and the news hard to follow.
(In the absence of their tax returns, you can peruse the financial disclosures of candidates who are/were members of Congress.)
Here's an up-to-date list that summarizes previous reporting on 2020 presidential candidates' taxes and links to available returns. Check them out for yourself:
Michael Bennet
Background: Bennet, a Democratic senator from Colorado, joined the race in May. Though he previously backed a bill that would require presidents and nominees to put out their tax returns, he does not appear to have released his own yet.
Available tax returns: None.
Joe Biden
Background: When former vice president Biden finally announced his bid for the Oval Office on April 25, he’d already released nearly two decades’ worth of tax documents. Biden and Barack Obama made a habit of putting out their tax returns annually for the eight years they were in the White House. In 2008, they also both publicized 10 years of 1040s as part of their campaign.
Back then, “Middle-Class Joe” Biden was one of the “poorest” senators, pulling in average of $245,000 a year, as CNN reported. Even in 2014, he declared “I have no savings accounts.”
But that may have since changed. After leaving office, Biden and his wife, Jill, signed a huge book deal, started charging for speeches and bought a $2.7 million beach house. They haven’t posted tax returns since 2016.
Available tax returns: 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015
Cory Booker
Background: When he was running for Senate in 2013, Booker showed 15 years of tax returns to reporters — in kind of a weird way. According to NJ.com, his team allowed nine journalists to look at physical copies of the documents for three hours in a hotel conference room. They were not allowed to take pictures of them.
The papers indicated that Booker earned about $4 million over that decade-plus time period and paid roughly $1.1 million in federal taxes, according to Politico.
He later released a 2013 tax return that showed he earned about $540,000 and donated $440,000 of it — more than 80% of his income. Again, journalists were allowed to look at the document for two hours, NBC New York reported.
More recently, Booker released a decade’s worth of his tax returns on April 24. His most recent 1040 shows that his adjusted gross income was about $153,000 last year. In previous years, Booker earned thousands from book royalties and speaking fees, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Available tax returns: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018
Pete Buttigieg
Background: Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., released his recent tax returns on April 30.
"We believe that candidates for the highest office in the land should be transparent and honest," his website reads. "They should play by the rules, pay their fair share, and be held accountable by the voters."
Buttigieg's tax papers show that in 2011, the year he ran for mayor, he only had about $7,000 in adjusted gross income. His 2018 documents show that he and his husband, filing jointly, earned roughly $153,000.
Available tax returns: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018
Steve Bullock
Background: The governor of Montana, a self-described "Democrat in a red state," launched his presidential bid in May. Bullock has 14 years' worth of tax returns available on his website. His most recent 1040 shows that he and his wife, Lisa Bullock, brought in about $184,00 in 2018 and paid nearly $18,000 in taxes.
Available tax returns: 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018
Julián Castro
Background: Castro told CNN on April 5 that he planned to "release 10 years of tax returns with plenty of time for people who are going to go caucus in Iowa and then of course everybody who's going to vote after to digest them."
Castro, a Texan who served as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Barack Obama, later added that he supports legally requiring presidential candidates to publicize a decade's worth of tax documents.
Available tax returns: None.
Bill de Blasio
Background: The New York City mayor formally announced his bid for the presidency on May 16. De Blasio has been publishing information about his taxes for years, but Money could only find two full PDFs of his returns.
Politico reported that de Blasio's 2018 return showed he earned more than $250,000 last year. He and his wife, Chirlane McCray, paid more than $69,000 in taxes.
Available tax returns: 2017, 2016
John Delaney
Background: When entrepreneur Delaney ran to represent Maryland in the House in 2012, he put out what the Washington Post called "a broad summary" of his 2004-2010 tax returns. Those indicated he pulled in about $14.5 million annually and paid out $2 million to the government.
Neither those summaries nor more detailed tax documents appear to be available online (or, at least, Money couldn't turn them up).
Available tax returns: None.
Tulsi Gabbard
Background: In 2017, Gabbard backed the "Presidential Tax Transparency Act," which would force the president to release three years' of tax returns or face civil and criminal consequences. The representative for Hawaii's second Congressional district does not appear to have yet publicized her own.
Available tax returns: None.
Kirsten Gillibrand
Background: Gillibrand, a New Yorker who recently said tax return transparency is key because "voters deserve to know we're beholden only to them," has her tax returns dating back to 2007 available on her Senate website.
Her most recent Form 1040 shows she and her husband's income amounted to more than $214,000 in 2018. They paid about $29,000 in federal taxes.
Available tax returns: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018
Mike Gravel
Background: Gravel, a former Alaska senator, is hoping to qualify for the debates so he can "push the field toward sane views on American imperialism and the need for fundamental political reform," according to his website. He does not appear to have released any of his tax returns.
Available tax returns: None.
Kamala Harris
Background: Harris, a senator from California, released 15 years of returns on April 14 in what the Los Angeles Times described as "the most sweeping look yet at a presidential contender’s personal finances." CBS News posted a link to a Google Drive purporting to contain the files.
The New York Times reported that she and her husband's adjustable gross income last year was nearly $1.9 million, and she paid about $700,000 in taxes.
Available tax returns: 2004 through 2018
John Hickenlooper
Background: Hickenlooper gave 23 years of tax returns to the media in 2010 when he was running for governor of Colorado. The Colorado Independent reported they showed he earned more than $16 million and paid over $2.5 million in federal income taxes over that period.
In 2014, he released four more years of returns — as summaries. Hickenlooper also touted his charitable giving but declined to name the organizations he gave money to, telling the Denver Post that he was trying to shield them from unwanted attention.
Those tax returns and summaries do not appear to be available online.
Available tax returns: None.
Jay Inslee
Background: Inslee released 12 years of tax returns on March 29, posting them on his 2020 website with a note saying the move was "part of his commitment to transparency on the campaign trail." The Washington governor used the drop to demand Trump release his own tax documents, saying that "it is time for him to come clean with the American people."
Inslee's most recent return indicates that he and his wife, Trudi Inslee, brought in about $203,000 and paid nearly $30,000 in taxes in 2018.
Available tax returns: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018
Amy Klobuchar
Background: Earlier this month, Klobuchar posted tax returns "for every year since she has been a candidate for federal office," as she puts it on her website. The Minnesota senator then called for Trump to show his taxes to the public, arguing that it was time for the president to "quit hiding from the American people," the Associated Press reported.
Her 2018 tax return shows she and her husband, John Bessler, earned more than $338,000 last year and paid nearly $66,000 in federal taxes.
Available tax returns: 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018
Wayne Messam
Background: Messam, the Democratic mayor of Miramar, Fla., told CBS News he was preparing his tax returns for publication. He then spoke about why Trump should release his.
"When you hide behind a veil of your financial business, you never know who you're influencing, where your priorities lie," Messam added. "I think it's important that the American people have some glimpse or some understanding of the financial standing of their commander-In-chief."
Available tax returns: None.
Seth Moulton
Background: Moulton, a Democratic representative from Massachusetts, formally joined the 2020 race on April 22. He does not appear to have released any tax returns, though in 2017 he tweeted that he wanted to see Trump’s financial papers.
"Trump said Americans don't care about seeing his tax returns. Are you kidding me?" Moulton wrote. "RT this if you're one who does."
Available tax returns: None.
Beto O'Rourke
Background: O'Rourke, a Texan who used to be in the House of Representatives, celebrated Tax Day on April 15 by putting 10 years' worth of tax returns online. Two issues arose as a result. First, the O'Rourkes were found to have underpaid their taxes in 2013 and 2014. According to the Wall Street Journal, the couple mistakenly deducted medical expenses. A spokesman told the Journal the O'Rourkes' accountant was planning to file an amendment to fix the situation.
Secondly, O'Rourke got called out at a University of Virginia town hall for donating less than 1% of his income to charity in 2017. USA Today reported a student asked why he gives less than her newly graduated sister does.
"I do my best to contribute to the success of my community, of my state, and now, of my country," O'Rourke said in response. "There are ways that I do this that are measurable, and there are ways that I do this that are immeasurable. There are charities that we donate to that we’ve recorded and itemized, others that we have donated to that we have not."
In the 2017 tax year, he and his wife had an adjusted gross income of more than $366,000. They paid about $81,000 in federal income taxes. As for 2018, O'Rourke's campaign told Reuters it would publish those documents "as soon as possible after they are filed."
Available tax returns: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017
Tim Ryan
Background: Ryan, who has represented Ohio in the House since 2003, released a decade of tax documents on April 29. He wrote on his campaign site that he's "committed to complete transparency and honesty with the American people."
Available tax returns: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018
Bernie Sanders
Background: Sanders released 10 years of tax returns on April 15. (When he ran for president in 2016, he'd only put out one year's worth.)
Despite having spent years railing against the wealthy, the Vermont senator has officially joined the 1%. He and his wife brought in more than $1 million in both 2016 and 2017, but the senator told the New York Times he wasn't overly concerned with the message that sent.
"I wrote a best-selling book," he said. "If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too."
His 2018 return showed that he and his wife earned about $561,000 and paid nearly $146,000 in federal taxes.
Available tax returns: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018
Eric Swalwell
Background: The California Democrat tweeted on April 7 that "I'll release my taxes. No questions asked." But the representative has not yet done so.
Available tax returns: None.
Donald Trump
Background: Although Trump claimed in 2014 that he "would love" to publish his tax documents, he broke with tradition in 2016 by refusing to produce them. He and his supporters have given a variety of reasons as to why he won't release his returns — among them that it's "none of your business," "there's nothing to learn from them" and "I'm being audited ... so I can't." (That last one is not true. President Richard Nixon did it.)
Trump's tax returns have become a subject of contention, and it's likely to stay that way as he runs for re-election. More than 1.1 million people signed an online White House petition asking for Trump's full tax returns. Others have staged protests.
Most recently, the House Democrats have tried to force the Treasury Department to release six years of the president's financial papers, even setting an April 23 deadline. The Treasury then missed that deadline, causing the Democrats to issue a subpoena.
Richard Neal, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, wrote in a news release that the group "has a responsibility to conduct oversight of our voluntary federal tax system and determine how Americans — including those elected to our highest office — are complying with those laws." In response, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he was "analyzing the law."
Currently, most of the information the American public has about Trump's taxes comes from the New York Times. In 2016, the paper obtained a 1995 return that showed that he lost $916 million. This May, the Times also got printouts of Trump's old tax transcripts. The data showed that Trump lost $1.17 billion between 1985 and 1994.
Available tax returns: 1995
Elizabeth Warren
Background: The Massachusetts senator posted a decade's worth of tax returns on her website this past August — before she even announced she was running for president. It was part of her push for the Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act, which would require presidential and vice presidential candidates to put out eight years of tax documents, as well as provide annual disclosures while in the White House.
Warren and her husband, Bruce Mann, earned an adjusted gross income of more than $846,000 in 2018. They were taxed roughly $231,000.
Available tax returns: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018
Bill Weld
Background: In 2016, when running as the Libertarian Party's vice-presidential candidate, Weld told the New York Times "of course [Trump] should make his tax returns public." Weld, a former governor of Massachusetts, is now running with the Republican Party.
He does not appear to have released any of his own tax papers, but his campaign told Money he will.
Available tax returns: None.
Marianne Williamson
Background: Author and activist Williamson has not put out any financial documents so far in her bid for the Democratic nomination.
"Marianne Williamson will be releasing her personal taxes despite the fact that she is under audit, unlike President Trump," a spokeswoman told Money. "In addition, because she believes in transparency, she will also be releasing her business tax returns."
Available tax returns: None.
Andrew Yang
Background: Yang, an entrepreneur whose campaign is built around Universal Basic Income, has not released any of his tax documents.
Available tax returns: None.
This story has been updated.