Fred Hubbell (file photo)
Fred Hubbell — the businessman who is Democratic Party’s nominee for governor — released some of his 2017 tax information today, indicating he and his wife donated $1.3 million to charity last year.
Hubbell’s campaign announced reporters may view the couple’s 2017 tax returns for three hours tomorrow afternoon. That is similar to former Governor Terry Branstad’s annual practice of letting reporters talk with his personal CPA and review copies of his returns for about an hour.
Earlier this summer, Governor Kim Reynolds posted, online, a decades’ worth of the tax returns she and her husband filed. She then challenged Hubbell to release 10 years’ worth of his returns.
Preliminary information released by Hubbell’s campaign indicates the Hubbells had $3 million in personal income in 2017 and donated more than 27 percent of their adjusted gross income to charity.
In addition, Hubbell and his wife have a charitable foundation. Their foundation wrote about $460,000 worth of checks in 2017.
The Hubbell campaign released the tax rates Fred and Charlotte Hubbell paid at the state and federal level, but not the amount of taxes they paid.
Hubbell has pledged that if he’s elected, he will release his personal tax information every year he’s in office. Hubbell’s campaign says his release of tax information for the year prior to the election “meets past precedent” followed by former Governor Bob Ray in 1968 and former Governor Chet Culver in 2006.
A spokesman for Governor Reynolds’ campaign said Hubbell “probably has something to hide” or he would have released 10 years’ worth of returns as Reynolds did.
Terry Branstad, in his first campaign for governor back in 1982, released the tax returns he and his wife had filed in the previous three years.