Former US President Donald Trump's tax returns for the past six years were released by Democrats in Congress on Friday. The measure capped off an extended investigation into the business dealings of a tycoon who defied decades of political tradition by refusing to release the information while running for president.
According to an AP News report, the Trump tax returns span the years 2015 through 2020 and have had sensitive information such as Social Security and bank account numbers obscured. Donald Trump and his wife Melania's personal tax returns are over 2,700 pages, while Trump's Organization returns totaled over 3,100 pages.
Trump's Tax Returns Are Now More Important
The House Ways and Means Committee decided last week along partisan lines to disclose the tax returns. The committee's liberals argued that releasing the materials would damage public faith and the rule of law, while the committee's conservatives expressed concern that doing so would compromise privacy protections.
While running for president, Trump tax returns were not made public and battled in court to keep them secret. The data had previously been withheld from the Ways and Means Committee, which drafts tax legislation, but a Supreme Court ruling last month allowed the Treasury Department to release them.
In a statement, Trump remarked that the disclosure is risky for the nation and that the Democrats "should never have done it" or gotten the Supreme Court to approve it. He also accused the extreme left Democrats of weaponizing everything.
Donald Trump also noted that the tax records highlight his success and how he exploited devaluation and various other tax deductions as an incentive for producing thousands of jobs and beautiful structures and enterprises.
Trump's finances have been cloaked in mystery since his days as an up-and-coming Manhattan real estate developer in the 1980s, and its disclosure, just days before Republicans reclaim control of the House from the Democrats, increases the possibility of further disclosures.
Now that Donald Trump is seeking the presidency in 2024, the findings may take on more significance. The information they provide about his personal finances as president will be the most comprehensive to date.
Although most of the information in the Trump tax returns has already been public, including the two reports released last week, the entire records from 2015 through 2020 are likely to give a rare glimpse into Donald Trump's finances and whether he may have gained from taxation policies he signed into law as president. The Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017 is one of them since it reduced taxes for companies and the wealthy.
In the first three years of his presidency, Donald Trump paid $1.1 million in federal income taxes, but in 2020, as his income decreased and his losses rose, he paid zero federal income taxes. During his first year in office, Donald Trump lost $12.9 million and paid $750 in federal income tax.
The impartial Joint Committee on Taxation reviewed the tax returns of Donald Trump for the House Ways and Means Committee and found several red flags that, in their judgment, required further scrutiny.
The settlement of fraud allegations against Trump University, which is no longer in operation, and financial connections with his children are two examples.
Tax Returns May Indicate Conflicts of Interest
US citizens' tax returns are held in the highest regard of confidentiality. Despite Congress's legal right to seek and provide such information, it practically never does so.
Since Donald Trump has broken with precedent by refusing to publish his tax returns while running for president or as president, Democratic lawmakers are demanding to see them investigate any conflicts of interest, per The New York Times.
After using its oversight power to look into the IRS's history of targeting presidents and vice presidents for audits, they were ultimately released.
The disclosed federal tax returns may shed light on Trump's finances for additional years and indicate how Donald Trump utilized his business enterprises and personal income in the years before and after he was president, according to a CNN story.
Democrats have been pressing for a long time to examine Trump tax returns to evaluate whether or not the former president has any conflicts of interest that might have affected his governance.
