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Hillary Clinton made $10 million last year and paid a third of that in taxes

Clinton released her 2015 tax returns on Friday, showing she and Bill Clinton earned most of their money from speaking fees and book deals.
Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton speaks at the National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NABNAHJ ) Convention and Career Fair in Washington, DC, USA, 05 August 2016. (Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA)

Hillary Clinton released her 2015 tax returns Friday, showing that she made a combined $10 million last year and paid about a third of that in federal income taxes.

The Democratic presidential nominee's 2015 tax returns, which she filed jointly with her husband Bill Clinton, show that the couple paid a federal tax rate of 34.2 percent and donated 9.8 percent of their income to charity. Factoring in state and local taxes, their effective tax rate was 43.2 percent. That tax rate complies with the Buffett Rule, which Clinton supports, that proposes anyone who makes $1 million or more in adjusted gross annual income should pay at least 30 percent in taxes.

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The returns show that the Clintons' made about $10 million last year, which is a significant drop from the year before, when the duo reported a combined income of about $28 million.

The power couple made the bulk of their money in 2015 from paid speeches and book sales. Bill Clinton made more $5.25 million in speaking fees, while his wife made nearly $1.5 from paid speeches. This is also a drop from the year before, when the couple made $20 million from speaking fees.

Hillary Clinton also earned $3 million in book sales last year. Between January 2014 to April 2015, Clinton raked in a cool $5 million for her book "Hard Choices," according to a campaign finance report released earlier this year.

The move to release the Clintons' latest recent tax returns puts increased pressure on Trump to do the same. He has repeatedly refused to do so, because, he says, he is currently being audited by Internal Revenue Service. He has also said they are no one else's business.

"Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine continue to set the standard for financial transparency as she releases her 2015 personal tax return and builds on the Clintons' tradition of making their returns public since 1977 and Kaine releases 10 years of his returns," said Hillary for America Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri in a statement. "In stark contrast, Donald Trump is hiding behind fake excuses and backtracking on his previous promises to release his tax returns. He has failed to provide the public with the most basic financial information disclosed by every major candidate in the last 40 years. What is he trying to hide?"

The IRS says Trump is free to release his tax returns even while undergoing an audit.

Clinton's running mate, Tim Kaine, also release the past ten years of his tax returns on Friday. The most recent return show that he and he wife, Anne Holton, earned $313,441 in 2015.

Follow Benjamin Gilbert on Twitter: @benrgilbert