BATTLE GROUND, Wash. — Southwest Washington congressional candidates Joe Kent and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez each released their most recent three years of tax returns Friday.
Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat, and Kent, a Republican, are facing off to represent Washington's 3rd Congressional District. The two of them finished first and second in the August primary, ousting incumbent Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler.
Kent pledged to make his tax returns public earlier this week during a taping of KGW's "Straight Talk," and released the records Friday morning.
In a statement released with the returns, Kent's campaign manager said that, if elected, Kent would introduce legislation to require candidates for "high government office" to disclose their tax returns publicly, and he said that Kent would continue to release annual tax returns while serving in Congress.
The returns cover the years 2019, 2020 and 2021. The first year's set comes from Anne Arundel County in Maryland and is filed jointly with Kent's wife Shannon, who died that year. Kent subsequently moved to Southwest Washington in 2020.
Kent's press release accused Gluesenkamp Perez of refusing to release her own tax returns, a charge which her campaign decried as false in a statement of its own on Friday afternoon.
Gluesenkamp Perez's campaign pledged to release her returns later in the day, and stated that the release of Kent's returns does not answer outstanding questions about his employer.
Her campaign sent returns for the same three years to KGW late Friday afternoon. KGW has sent both sets of returns to an expert for further review, and will report more when we hear back.
