House Committee Releases Trump Tax Returns

The release will launch new scrutiny of the former president’s finances and comes after he fought for years to keep the returns secret.

The Democratic-led House Ways and Means committee released six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns on Friday, marking the culmination of a nearly four-year investigation and a bruising legal battle that made it to the Supreme Court.

The returns will likely inspire new scrutiny of Trump’s financial dealings, which have been cloaked in mystery for years. Trump fought vigorously to keep the returns a secret, and their release comes as he seeks a second term in the White House amid headwinds from even those within his own party.

The publication also comes in the waning days of Democrats’ control of the House, as Republicans gear up to take back control of the chamber next week – a turnover that will shutter the committee’s investigation into Trump’s taxes and many like it.

The cache published Friday includes Trump’s personal tax returns from 2015 to 2020, the years he was either running for or was president. The Ways and Means Committee obtained the records after a lengthy investigation they said recently was centered on the failure of the Internal Revenue Service to audit Trump during his first two years in office in violation of their own policy.

Two reports published by the Ways and Means Committee earlier this month revealed that Trump for years paid little or no taxes as he claimed massive business losses.

The tax returns have been of interest to Democrats since Trump announced his candidacy for president. He was the first candidate and first president in modern history to not release his personal tax returns, prompting speculation that he may be shielding controversial or even suspect financial transactions.

Trump insisted for years that he could not release his returns because he was being audited, but the committee’s report revealed that the IRS did not audit Trump until 2019, after Democrats had begun investigating. Both former President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden have said that they were routinely audited by the IRS.

Though much of the information in the documents was made public by the panel’s two reports, the returns will provide a new, incredibly detailed picture of Trump’s financial dealings.

The Ways and Means committee report sharply criticized the way the IRS handled Trump’s taxes.

The second report the panel released was prepared by the Joint Committee on Taxation, a nonpartisan committee of tax experts. That panel found several questionable items in Trump’s returns that they said warranted more investigation.

Those red flags include transactions with his children, which were reported as interest he received from them as a result of personal loans. The committee questioned if the loans were actually disguised gifts meant to evade gift taxes and benefit his children.

The report also said the IRS had investigated $21 million Trump paid to settle fraud claims related to the now-shuttered Trump University.