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The Bidens paid $288,000 in federal income taxes for 2019.

As the revelation of President Trump’s years of tax avoidance shook up the campaign, Joe Biden released his 2019 return, showing he paid $288,000 in federal income taxes.

Joseph R. Biden Jr. released his latest tax returns hours before the first general election debate and days after a Times report on the president’s taxes.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times

Joseph R. Biden Jr. released his 2019 tax returns on Tuesday, which show that he and his wife, Jill, had an adjusted gross income of $985,000 last year and paid federal income taxes of nearly $288,000.

Mr. Biden released his latest tax returns hours before the first general election debate, and two days after The New York Times reported that President Trump paid only $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and in 2017.

That was a tiny fraction of what the Bidens paid those years, according to tax returns they had previously made public. They paid $91,000 in federal income taxes in 2016, when they had an adjusted gross income of $396,000, and they paid $3.7 million in 2017, when their adjusted gross income was $11 million.

The following year, in 2018, they paid $1.5 million in federal income taxes and had an adjusted gross income of $4.6 million.

Mr. Biden’s release of his most recent tax return seemed timed to place even more focus on Mr. Trump’s taxes and keep him on the defensive about them going into the debate, which is being held Tuesday night in Cleveland. Mr. Biden’s plane landed at Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland at 4:45 p.m., and, after a wave to the press he left the airport in a black Chevrolet Suburban.

In addition to nearly $288,000 in federal income taxes, the Bidens paid nearly $12,000 in other federal taxes, for a total of just under $300,000.

Mr. Biden has now released returns covering the past 22 years. His running mate, Senator Kamala Harris of California, also released her 2019 tax returns on Tuesday, which come in addition to 15 years of returns she released last year.

“This is a historic level of transparency meant to give the American people faith, once again, that their leaders will look out for them and not their own bottom line,” Kate Bedingfield, a deputy campaign manager for Mr. Biden, said on a call with reporters.

Mr. Trump did not release his tax returns when he ran for president as the Republican nominee in 2016, breaking with modern tradition, and has refused to do so since then.

Mr. Biden had previously criticized Mr. Trump for not releasing his tax returns. And this week, the Biden campaign quickly sought to capitalize on the revelations about Mr. Trump’s taxes, releasing a video showing the federal income taxes paid by workers like teachers and firefighters and launching a “Trump tax calculator” where people can determine how much more they paid in federal income taxes than the president.

Thomas Kaplan is a political reporter based in Washington. He previously covered Congress, the 2016 presidential campaign and New York state government. More about Thomas Kaplan

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