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GOP Senate Hopeful Scott Brown Releases Tax Returns

New Hampshire Republican Senate hopeful Scott Brown and his wife released tax records Friday showing their annual income averaged just over $455,000 for the past eight years.

Brown, a former U.S. senator from Massachusetts, is seeking the GOP nomination for the seat now held by Democrat Jeanne Shaheen.

The tax returns he released Friday show he and his wife bringing in $474,080 last year, including $108,000 he was paid as a commentator for Fox News and $104,000 he earned practicing law.

Roughly half of Brown's 2013 income came from serving on various boards of directors or as an adviser to companies. According to disclosure forms filed with the Senate Ethics Committee, he was paid $42,000 as an adviser to the Bipartisan Coalition for American Security, and $207,350 in stock and compensation by Kadant, Inc., a Massachusetts company that describes itself as a leading supplier to the global pulp and paper industry.

Brown's wife income from a media company and from public speaking amounted to about $21,000 in 2013, though in past years she earned significantly more as a reporter for Boston's WCVB-TV. In 2009, her wages amounted to just over $143,000.

The couple's average effective tax rate over eight years was 23.6 percent. The amount they donated to charity ranged from 1.4 to 3.2 percent of their income each year, with the largest donations usually going to an unspecified church. They also gave to numerous charities focused on helping children, veterans, animals and those fighting a range of diseases. In 2006, they donated a horse to an animal adoption program in West Virginia.

The financial disclosure forms also show Brown has earned nearly $187,000 in speaking fees since January 2013, an average of $9,325 per speech. His highest fee was $20,000 for a speech he gave in Las Vegas in May for the hedge firm fund Skybridge Capital.

Brown faces former U.S. Sen. Bob Smith and former state Sen. Jim Rubens in a September primary. A spokesman for Shaheen said the senator will make her tax returns available for review "soon."

This article was originally published on June 20, 2014.

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