WASHINGTON (AFP) — Republican presidential candidate John McCain released his personal tax filings for the last two years on Friday, but he refused to disclose the income of his multi-millionaire wife.
McCain revealed that he makes 162,000 dollars a year as a senator while last year he received 23,000 dollars in social security payments, in addition to his 58,000 dollar pension as a retired navy pilot.
The 71-year-old de facto Republican nominee for president also received 80,000 dollars in 2006 and 176,000 dollars in 2007 in book royalties.
But the Arizona senator did not release the tax returns of his wife Cindy McCain, the heiress and chairwoman of a beer distribution company worth an estimated tens of millions of dollars. The couple files separate tax returns.
"Since the beginning of their marriage, Senator McCain and Mrs. McCain have always maintained separate finances," his campaign said in a statement.
"In the interest of protecting the privacy of her children, Mrs. McCain will not be releasing her personal tax returns," it said.
McCain's Democratic rivals, senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have released the tax filings of their spouses along with their own.
Obama and his wife pulled in a cool 4.2 million dollars in 2007.
But it pales in comparison to Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, who released income tax documents for the past eight years showing they had raked in 109 million dollars since they left the White House.
Clinton and Obama are in a close battle for the Democratic nomination to face McCain in the November election.
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