Democrats in Congress on Friday publicly released six years of Donald Trump’s tax records, revealing documents the former president had long sought to keep secret and dealing another blow as he seeks the White House again in 2024.
A Democratic-controlled US House of Representatives committee released Trump’s redacted returns for 2015 to 2020, capping a multi-year battle between the Republican former president and Democratic lawmakers that was settled by the US Supreme Court just last month.
Aside from the return itself, the release didn’t include much new. In response, Trump warned of dire consequences and used the opportunity to seek campaign donations.
Trump’s tax data will now be available for in-depth research by journalists, independent tax experts and others in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, and could shed light on Trump’s wealth, his business performance and how he reduced his tax liability. .
The nearly 6,000-page record includes 2,700 pages of Trump and his wife Melania Trump’s personal returns, as well as more than 3,000 pages of returns from his businesses.
Records show that Trump’s income and tax liability fluctuated dramatically from 2015 to 2020, during his first presidential bid and subsequent terms. He and his wife claimed large deductions and losses, and paid little or no income tax during many of those years.
Trump, a businessman who first held public office when he entered the White House in 2017, was the first presidential candidate in decades not to release his tax returns. He filed a lawsuit to try to keep the committee secret, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the committee.
In its findings released last week, the committee said the Internal Revenue Service, which collects taxes, broke its own rules by not auditing three of the four years Trump was president.
“Our findings were simple – the IRS did not begin a mandatory audit of the former president until I made my initial request,” Richard Neal, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement.
Neal first requested the returns in 2019, arguing that Congress needed to determine whether they needed legislation on the president’s tax returns.
It was the latest setback for Trump, 76, who has been impeached twice by the Democratic-led House only to be acquitted both times by the US Senate and now faces several legal problems as he mounts a 2024 re-election bid.
Earlier this month, a House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters asked federal prosecutors to charge him with four felonies, including obstruction and sedition, for his role in the deadly riots.
Trump’s response
In a statement, Trump said: “Democrats should never have done this, the Supreme Court should never have approved this, and it will lead to terrible things for a lot of people.”
“The Great USA divide will only get worse. Radical left-wing Democrats have armed everyone, but remember, it’s a dangerous two-way street!” he said.
Representative Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the House panel, warned that future committee chairs would have “almost unlimited” power to release the tax returns of private citizens, including “political enemies.”
“This is a regrettable stain on the Ways and Means Committee and Congress and will make American politics even more divisive and frustrating. In the long run, Democrats will come to regret it,” Brady said in a statement.
Details previously released by the panel showed that Trump paid no income tax in 2020, despite millions of dollars in income from his sprawling business empire.
Democrats were on a tight timeline to find a way to handle the returns after they received them, given that Republicans will win a slim majority in November’s midterm elections and take control of the House on Tuesday.
Before going into its winter recess, the Democratic-controlled House passed a bill that would require the Internal Revenue Service, which collects taxes, to complete audits of presidents’ tax files within 90 days of their inauguration.