Obama income soared in 2007

Campaigning for president has been very good for Sen. Barack Obama’s pocketbook, with his household income jumping from $991,296 in 2006 to $4.2 million in 2007, tax records show.

The Illinois Democrat had a net profit from book sales of $3.9 million, according to a copy of a 2007 tax return released Wednesday by Obama and his wife, Michelle. That total includes $169,706 in foreign income from overseas sales of his two best-selling books.

The Obamas’ salaries totaled $260,735, which included his $157,102 salary as a U.S. senator and her part-time salary of $103,633 as a vice president at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

The couple paid nearly $1.4 million in federal taxes last year, and made $240,370 in charitable contributions. Their largest gifts were to the United Negro College Fund ($50,000), the international relief organization CARE ($35,000) and Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago ($26,270).

In late March, the Obamas posted their 2000 through 2006 tax returns on the Internet, as a way to prompt his challenger for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, to release tax documents from her post-White House years, something she did this month. Her records showed she and her husband, former President Clinton, had earned $109 million since 2000.

The Obamas contributed $6 in 2007 to the federal fund that provides public financing for presidential campaigns in exchange for limits on spending.

Obama, however, said last week that he remains uncertain whether he will participate in the program should he win his party’s nomination. He signed a pledge last year that he would do so if the Republican nominee did as well.

Clinton’s campaign called Wednesday for Obama to also release his 1997, 1998 and 1999 returns. Though he has not widely distributed them, his 1998 and 1999 returns were previously provided to the Chicago Tribune.