Inslee releases his tax returns

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), who is running for president, posted 12 years of his tax returns on his campaign website Friday, calling on President Trump to similarly release his tax filings.

“It is time for him to come clean with the American people,” Inslee told “Fox & Friends,” which Trump is known to watch. “He’s got to show what he’s been hiding, and Americans deserve that truth.”

Inslee’s website includes tax returns from 2007 to 2018. He had disclosed the returns from 2007 through 2015 during his gubernatorial campaigns.

Inslee is the second Democratic presidential candidate to release their 2018 tax return, after Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) did so earlier this week. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has already released her tax returns for 2008 to 2017. More candidates are likely to release their returns as the April 15 filing deadline approaches.

By releasing their tax returns, the Democrats are drawing a contrast with Trump, who in 2016 became the first major-party nominee in decades to refuse to release any of his tax returns. Trump has said he won’t release his returns while under audit, but the IRS has said nothing prevents people from disclosing their own tax information.

Earlier this month, Inslee said he backs legislation that passed the Washington state Senate that would require presidential candidates to release at least five years of tax returns to be listed on a ballot.

Inslee’s 2018 tax return shows that he and his wife, Trudi, had total income of $202,912, mostly from the candidate’s gubernatorial salary and a federal pension (Inslee previously served in Congress). The Inslees paid $29,906 in taxes, for an effective tax rate of 14.7 percent. 

2018 is the first year that people are filing their taxes under the Republican tax law, which Democrats opposed because much of its benefits go to high earners. The tax law cut rates across the board, and Inslee and his wife appear to have gotten a tax cut for 2018. In 2017, their income was roughly the same as it was in 2018 and their effective tax rate was 16.2 percent.