Current presidential candidate senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, have had a booming period (economically speaking) over the past eight years. The Clintons released tax data on Friday showing that they earned $109 million, an impressive amount of money that seemed unimaginable about eight years ago when Mr. Clinton and his wife left the White House facing an estimated $12 million in legal bills.

The tax data released shows that the Clintons made most of their fortune from speaking and book-writing, which put together amounted for almost $92 million. Mr. Clinton earned about $52 million through his lecture schedule. Over that period, the Clintons paid $33.8 million in federal taxes and claimed deductions for $10.2 million in charitable contributions.

After Mr. Clinton finished his second and last mandate at the White House, the two earned about $30 million from their best-selling and approximately $15 million more through an investment partnership presidential campaign fundraiser Ronald Burkle.

Initially New York senator Hillary Clinton refused to reveal her family's finances, but after Barack Obama, her candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for presidency, did it. The pressure to make public her family’s finances grew in February when she financed her campaign with $5 million of her own.

The Clinton campaign underlined the fact that the Clinton’s made public their income tax records not only since Mr. Clinton was governor of Arkansas, but also released a summary of income for last year. Neither Obama nor McCain have made public his 2007 tax-return information.

"The Clintons have now made public 30 years of tax returns, a record matched by few people in public service. None of Hillary Clinton’s presidential opponents have revealed anything close to this amount of personal financial information,” said Jay Carson, a campaign spokesman.

Mr. Barack Obama and his wife earned about $1 million in 2006, mainly from his book deals, while Mr. McCain’s, Cindy, owns a beer distributorship fortune worth tens of millions of dollars, but the exact amount earned in the past years isn’t clear.