Trump's Tax Records Poised for Release as Democrats Vote

Trump has said that, at the advice of his lawyers, he wouldn’t release his tax documents while he’s under audit by the Internal Revenue Service — and he says he has been audited constantly since 2004. There is no law that prevents tax returns under audit from being made public.

Trump has also said there’s “nothing to learn from” his returns, that they are “extremely complex” so people “wouldn’t understand them,” and that Americans who aren’t reporters don’t “care at all” about what’s in them.

The tax code allows the chairmen of the congressional tax committees to request the returns of any taxpayer, including the president. That information can then be made public by a majority vote of the committee. The tax returns have been very closely held because releasing tax information without authorization is a felony punishable by prison time.

Trump’s unwillingness to release the documents has heightened speculation about what information about loans, business ties or his wealth they could contain.

Much of Trump’s financial picture became public two years ago, when weeks ahead of the 2020 election the New York Times published excerpts of Trump’s tax returns that showed he paid minimal taxes, including paying no income taxes in 10 of the past 15 years because of large losses that offset any profits.

The New York Times report said that many of Trump’s businesses are struggling, with him putting more money into the firms than he’s taking out, and that he earned millions abroad during his time in the White House, including from authoritarian-leaning countries such as the Philippines and Turkey. Trump dismissed the reporting as “totally fake news.”

(Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg)