In the battle between US presidential candidates from the Democratic Party - the black senator from Illinois, 46-year-old Barack Obama, and the former first lady, senator from New York, 60-year-old Hillary Clinton - tax returns were used. Obama posted his personal accounts of the past seven years on his website and called on Hillary Clinton to do the same. “The release of tax returns is common. We believe the Clinton campaign should meet this standard,” said Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs. The campaign headquarters of the senator from Illinois reminds that after leaving the White House in 2001, the Clintons did not publish a single tax return. Obama officials are particularly interested in the former first lady's income over the past two years. After all, Mrs. Clinton is believed to have contributed $5 million from personal funds to her campaign fund in early 2008.
Obama's website also includes his wife Michelle's tax returns. It follows from them that after the re-release of the book “Dreams from My Father” in 2005, the Obama couple’s income increased to $1.6 million from $275 thousand in 2004. In 2006, Senator Obama published The Audacity of Hope, from which he earned half a million dollars. Overall, the Obama family's income in 2006 was $991,000, of which $280,000 was paid in taxes.
