After Years of Controversy: Trump’s Tax Documents Released

Now everyone can see for themselves: former US President Trump has paid little or no taxes for years. According to the Finance Committee, this emerges from documents published on the Internet.

After years of legal battles, a US House committee has released former President Donald Trump’s tax documents. The Democratic-led House Finance Committee Thousands of pages of Trump tax documents 2015 to 2020 online. According to the group, this shows that Trump has paid little or no federal income tax for years, despite always boasting about his wealth.

For years, Trump has used legal avenues to resist handing over documents to the Treasury Department — finally losing in the U.S. Supreme Court a few weeks ago. The committee previously submitted two reports detailing information from the documents and decided with most Democrats to make the original tax documents available to the public, at least partially — or blacking out important information. This is a huge amount of data.

No income tax in the last year of tenure

Brief preliminary reports released by the committee last week list detailed information from Trump’s tax returns for the years 2015 to 2020 — both before and throughout his time as president. In 2016, the year he was elected, and in 2017, his first year in the White House, Trump paid only $750 in federal income tax and claimed a higher loss. Then in 2018 he declared millions in profits and paid about $1 million in income taxes. In 2020, his last year in office, Trump paid no income tax.

The “New York Times” had already reported in the middle of the election campaign before the 2020 presidential election that Trump paid only $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017. This was made possible by, among other things, rebates and credits due to high losses incurred. Trump denied that at the time, saying he had given “millions.”

Panel: Trump pursues ‘tax avoidance tactics’

The Finance Committee recently complained: “Multiple reports have revealed that the former president pursued aggressive tax strategies and decades of tax avoidance through the complexities of his personal and business finances.”

One of the group’s two reports released last week also said the IRS failed to properly screen Trump. During his four years in office, only one mandatory audit was initiated and none completed. Trump has always insisted that his tax documents were audited during his presidency – which is why he couldn’t release them.

They have been struggling with tax records for years

Contrary to the usual practice in the United States, Trump has not made his tax returns public either as a presidential candidate or after moving into the White House. So critics suspected he had something to hide — and he defended himself against the disclosure of the documents by all means legal.

The Finance Committee in the House of Representatives had been trying for years to get hold of the tax documents. During Trump’s administration, the Treasury Department initially stalled. Only last year under the administration of his Democratic successor, Joe Biden, did the Treasury Department finally instruct the IRS to hand over the documents to the committee. Trump defended himself in court and tried various instances until his only recourse was to go to the Supreme Court, which he ultimately lost in November.

A last-minute win for the panel

It’s a last-minute victory for the committee: With Republicans winning a majority in the House of Representatives and taking over next week, the Democratic-led body is running out of time to do anything about it. .

Trump previously railed against the planned release of these documents: “You can’t learn much from tax returns, but it’s illegal to release them if you don’t own them,” he warned. The Republican announced in November that he would seek to run again as his party’s presidential nominee in the 2024 election.