• Saturday, March 20, 2010
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Clintons Donated 9% of Income to Charity From 2000 to 2007, Campaign Says

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former president Bill Clinton made charitable contributions of $10.2-million from 2000 through 2007, or more than 9 percent of their total income, according to Senator Clinton’s presidential campaign.

The Clintons had total income of more than $109-million during those eight years and paid federal taxes of more than $33-million, said a press release from Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.

Mrs. Clinton, a senator from New York, has donated more than $1.1-million to charity from the earnings of her book, It Takes a Village, since it was published in 1996, the campaign said.

The former president has earned $6.3-million from his book, Giving, which was published last year, and he donated $1-million of his income from Giving to charity in 2007, the campaign said. (When the book was published, Mr. Clinton said that a portion of his proceeds from it would be contributed to nonprofit groups “that are doing their part to change the world.”)

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign press release noted that the Clintons have supported charities through their Clinton Family Foundation, a private foundation that uses an address in their home town of Chappaqua, N.Y.

The Clintons have taken charitable-tax deductions for gifts to their private foundation, which in turn provides grants to charities.

Like many private family foundations, the Clinton fund does not spend all the money it receives each year (private foundations are only required to spend 5 percent, on average, of their assets annually).

For example, in 2005 Mr. and Mrs. Clinton gave their foundation $1.75-million. That year, their foundation made grants that totaled $549,000, including $100,000 to the U.S. Fund for Unicef for tsunami relief; $50,000 to Immanuel Baptist Church in Little Rock, Ark.; and $10,000 to the Clinton Birthplace Foundation in Hope, Ark.

Informational tax returns for the Clinton Family Foundation from 2001 through 2006 are available at the Foundation Center’s Web site or GuideStar’s Web site.

The Clinton Family Foundation is separate from Mr. Clinton’s William J. Clinton Foundation, in Little Rock.

Barack Obama, the Illinois senator who also is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, released tax returns for the years 2000 through 2006 last week and plans to release his 2007 tax return later this month.

The Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, the Arizona senator, has said he will release tax returns later this month.

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