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Bernie and Jane Sanders earned nearly $206K in 2014, tax returns show

Posted at 9:59 PM, Apr 15, 2016
and last updated 2016-04-15 21:59:44-04

Bernie and Jane Sanders earned nearly $206,000 in 2014 and paid about $28,000 in federal taxes, according to a tax return released by his campaign Friday night.

The return also shows that the couple earned nearly $46,000 in Social Security benefits.

Together, their total unadjusted gross earnings was $205,617. Most of the earnings came from Sanders’ $174,000 Senate salary, though Jane Sanders reported collecting $4,900 as a commissioner with the Texas Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission.

The couple also reported donating $8,350 in gifts, though the seven-page return did not provide further detail.

Sanders did not immediately release a statement accompanying the return. But Jeff Weaver, his campaign manager, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on “Anderson Cooper 360” Friday night that “there’s not really much there to be trying to dump.”

“It’s just a question of getting it out,” he added.

The release upholds a pledge Sanders made at the CNN Democratic debate to release his 2014 taxes.

After Sanders knocked Hillary Clinton for not releasing transcripts of her speeches to Goldman Sachs during Thursday night’s debate, she fired back, asking when he was going to release his taxes.

Sanders then promised that his 2014 return would be released Friday.

“Look, I don’t want to get anybody very excited,” Sanders said. “They are very boring tax returns. No big money from speeches, no major investments. Unfortunately — unfortunately, I remain one of the poorer members of the United States Senate. And that’s what that will show.”

Sanders’ net worth was estimated to be $436,000 in 2014, according to calculations by the Center for Responsive Politics, which ranked him No. 81 on a chart listing personal wealth in the Senate.

Asked why the return wasn’t released sooner, Sanders told moderator Wolf Blitzer that his wife usually does their taxes but had been busy with him on the campaign trail.

Sanders released the first few pages from his 2014 taxes to The Washington Post last June.

In July, Clinton released the last eight years of her tax returns, and her campaign says 38 years of Clinton tax returns have been available to the press over the course of her career, dating back to 1977.