Cindy McCain releases 2006 tax returnsPosted: 05:48 PM ET
From CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser
WASHINGTON (CNN) – Cindy McCain released part of her 2006 tax returns Friday. The filings show she earned a total income of $6 million, and paid more than $1.7 million in taxes. She also claimed deductions of close to $570,000.
Her husband John McCain's presidential campaign said she had received an extension on her 2007 tax returns, and planned to release those as well. Her husband, presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, made his own returns public last month.
Under a prenuptial agreement, the couple keeps their tax returns and assets completely separate. Cindy McCain is heiress to a liquor fortune.
A campaign spokesman said she still had concerns about the privacy of her children — the reason she had given earlier for not releasing the records — she did not want the lingering questions continue to be a distraction from other issues.
The campaign dismissed questions over its decision to release the documents late on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. "The campaign makes determinations when the make things public," spokesman Tucker Bounds told CNN. "This is something that came together today. We feel very good about that fact that people are able to get the information that they had asked for."
A campaign aide says that Cindy McCain made the decision recently, but this was the first time the campaign had had a chance to release the documents.
He added that the moves will exceed those of Teresa Heinz Kerry, also an heiress, when her husband John Kerry was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004. Heinz Kerry made one year of returns public, but withheld some portions of the filing, and did not release the information until the final months of the campaign.
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