I’ve gotten several emails this morning about my story on Joe Biden’s tax returns. The story detailed how Biden’s contributions to charity, over the last decade, have fallen far below the national average:

Last Friday, Sen. Joseph Biden, the Democratic candidate for vice president, released his tax returns for the years 1998 to 2007. The returns revealed that in one year, 1998, Biden and his wife Jill gave $120 to charity out of an adjusted gross income of $210,979. In 2005, out of an adjusted gross income of $321,379, the Bidens gave $380. In nine out of the ten years for which tax returns were released, the Bidens gave less than $400 to charity; in the tenth year, 2007, when Biden was running for president, they gave $995 out of an adjusted gross income of $319,853.

Most of the emails concern Biden spokesman David Wade’s statement that, “The charitable contributions claimed by the Bidens on their tax returns are not the sum of their annual contributions to charity. Like most regular churchgoers, they contribute to their church, and they also contribute to their favorite causes with their time as well as their checkbooks…”

Why, readers ask, wouldn’t the Biden’s claim contributions to their church as charitable donations for tax purposes? After all, that is perfectly legitimate and done by millions of Americans each year. I asked Wade the same thing yesterday, via email, and got no response.

On the other side, I got this letter from a reader in Delaware:

What Biden’s tax returns do not show are the hundreds of hours per year that are donated to charity. I am familiar with how generous the Bidens are with their time. The Senator and Dr. Jill Biden routinely show up and/or host formal and informal events for the homeless, military families, breast cancer education and educational scholarships. Jill Biden, a teacher, organized a book drive for the school libraries damaged by Katrina. Then Jill personally went with the truck to deliver the books. She is now rallying the community to help donate books to a local inner-city day care center.
Perhaps the only fault is that they were not more publicity-hungry about these efforts.