WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush has earned nearly $28 million since leaving the Florida governor's mansion and has paid an effective federal income tax rate of 36 percent in the past three decades, according to tax returns released by his campaign Tuesday.
In an effort to show a commitment to transparency, Bush posted the tax returns on a website that outlines his work history since 1981, including most of the time that has passed since the two-term Florida governor left office in 2007. In those recent years, Bush has served on numerous corporate boards and has seen his income rise sharply.
"Today, I'm releasing 33 years of tax returns -- more than any presidential candidate in history," Bush wrote on the website.
From 2007 to 2013, Bush reported about $27.7 million in total income. His primary occupation during that time was as a consultant, although he also made nearly $10 million giving speeches from 2007 through the end of last year, according to data provided by his campaign.
Bush earned nearly $7.4 million in total income in 2013, the year covered by the most recent tax return released. A year earlier, he reported just under $6 million in total income.
Bush's average federal tax rate puts him in the top 1 percent of taxpayers, who paid an average of 30.2 percent between 1981 and 2011, according to figures from the Congressional Budget Office. The average for middle-income households in that time was 16.6 percent.
Bush's disclosure sets him apart from other candidates, past and present, on multiple fronts.
No other candidate has released as many returns. The closest was Bob Dole, the 1996 Republican nominee, who released 29 years of his income tax returns. In 2004, Democratic nominee John Kerry disclosed 20 years of such records.
Bush's tax returns also show he paid a much higher federal tax rate on average than that paid by the GOP's 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney, over roughly the same time.
Romney was hammered by critics for refusing to release more than two years of his tax returns that showed an average tax rate of 14 percent.
Bush is also the first of the nearly two dozen candidates for president in 2016 to release tax returns. But Ron Weiser, a former finance chairman at the Republican National Committee, said Bush's actions are aimed not at his competition for the GOP nomination but at Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"What Bush reports having made is likely much less than what Hillary Clinton has made, and she's portraying herself as for the little guy," Weiser said.
The Clintons have had earnings exceeding $30 million combined in speaking fees and book royalties since January 2014, according to the personal financial disclosure Hillary Clinton filed in May. The report showed the couple amassed more than $25 million in speaking fees and the former secretary of state earned more than $5 million from her 2014 memoir, Hard Choices.
Clinton's earnings since 2014 put the couple in the top one-tenth of 1 percent of all Americans.
In the online posting, Bush cites, "One fun fact I learned in this process: I have paid a higher tax rate than the Clintons even though I earned less income."
Yet the disclosure that Bush made millions from giving speeches leaves him open to some of the same criticism that Republicans have heaped on Clinton for doing the same. Bush made $9,954,500 by delivering 276 speeches from 2007 to 2015 to groups that included universities, companies, research institutes and economic forums.
Among them: the National Petrochemical Refiners Association, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, General Motors and United Christian Giving Inc.
Tuesday's release did not include a personal financial disclosure form, which is required of all candidates within 30 days of announcing their candidacy. Bush has requested a 45-day extension to do so, said spokesman Kristy Campbell.
Tax returns are much more detailed than those forms, and it has become customary in the past several decades for presidential candidates to make them public.
Bush's Republican rivals did not indicate when their tax returns might be made public.
According to previously released financial disclosures, Bush left the Florida governor's office less wealthy than when elected. The decline in his net worth, from $2 million in 1998 to less than $1.3 million in early 2007, came largely from a diminished investment portfolio.
Campaign spokesman Allie Brandenburger said Bush's decision to release the tax returns was "consistent with the high level of disclosure he has practiced during his life in public office."
In February, Bush released more than 275,000 emails that were sent to and from his private email account during his time as governor.
Information for this article was contributed by Thomas Beaumont, Jeff Horwitz and Julie Bykowicz of The Associated Press.
A Section on 07/01/2015