Potential 2020 Democratic presidential contender Sen. Elizabeth Warren and her husband more than doubled their average charitable donations in 2017, one year before the Democrat was set to run again for her Senate seat in Massachusetts.
Warren and her husband Bruce Mann released their tax returns in August, which reveal an average charitable donation of about 4 percent from 2008 to 2017. In that last year, however, one year before her re-election bid, Warren and her husband donated nearly 9 percent of their income to charity, the equivalent of about $82,000.
On average, the couple donates about $37,000 each year.
Warren released a slew of tax returns in August, fueling speculation she is gearing up for a tilt at the White House in 2020.
“Every year she’s been in public service, Sen. Warren has been required to disclose her income and assets annually,” the website for her 2018 re-election campaign for the U.S. Senate announced last month. “She’s gone a step further and released her tax returns covering her time in public service to-date.”
The issue of charitable giving is a controversial one among Democrats. While Warren’s track record is on par with former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama, it pales in comparison to 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and his wife Ann.
Former Vice President Joe Biden additionally was slammed after it was disclosed that he and his wife Jill claimed on average only $369 in charitable gifts in the decade before 2008.
“Joe Biden’s budget shows that while he wants to be generous with your money through higher taxes and government spending, for years he gave less than two-tenths of 1 percent of his money to charity,” former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark., said of Biden at the 2012 Republican National Convention. “He just wants you to give the government more so he and the Democrats can feel better about themselves.”
President Trump did not make his tax returns public during his race for the White House in 2016, claiming a routine audit by the Internal Revenue Service precluded him from doing so.
