Trump’s Tax Returns Released by House Dems

The House Ways and Means Committee on Friday released Six years of Donald Trump’s taxes, ending several years’ worth of protracted court battles over releasing the former president’s financial documents.

The committee’s decision to release Trump’s taxes comes as Democrats are slated to cede control of the House next week. Republicans, who gained the majority Nov. 8, are set to assume control of House committees.

The Democrat-led Ways and Means committee voted last week to release the tax returns. It also released two reports. One said that the Internal Revenue Service did not audit the former President for the first two years he served as president. In 2018, and 2019, the federal income tax net was $1.1 million.

According to a review of Friday’s releases, Trump and former first lady Melania Trump reported negative income in four of the six tax years. In 2020, the former president reported a loss of $4.7 million and paid $0 in federal taxes. In 2018, and 2019, the couple paid approximately $1.1million in combined federal income taxes.

“Ways and Means is entrusted with great responsibilities. Today, the weight of our job is heavy. Congress serves as a check on the Executive Branch, and our Committee is entrusted with oversight of our revenue system. We all come to Ways and Means with the goal of creating a fairer tax code. Because at the root of it all, it is our federal tax system that funds the democracy we all cherish and love,” the House Ways and Means said in a release on Friday in announcing the decision to make Trump’s returns public.

According to the panel, it believed that “mandatory audits were being conducted promptly and in accordance with IRS policies. However, our review found that under the prior Administration the program was dormant. We know now, the first mandatory audit was opened two years into his presidency. On the same day this Committee requested his returns.”

Response

Ahead of Friday’s disclosure, Trump’s 2024 campaign released a video and said it was an abuse of power. Previously, Trump and other Republicans have decried the move as politically motivated that doesn’t serve the public’s interest.

 

Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) Washington, Dec. 20, 2022 (Mandel Nagan/AFP via Getty Images

“There is no legitimate legislative purpose for their action. And if you look at what they’ve done, it’s so sad for our country,” Trump spoke in a Friday video. “It’s nothing but another deranged political witch hunt which has been going on from the day I came down an escalator in Trump Tower.”

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), the ranking member on the Ways and Means Committee, made a similar statement and warned it’s “a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond the former president and overturns decades of privacy protections for average Americans that have existed since the Watergate reform.”

Trump’s federal income tax returns were released for the years 2015 to 2020, along with tax records for some of his business entities. Trump tried to stop the release of these records in court after the panel sought them since Trump’s presidency in 2019.

Friday’s disclosure appears to show thousands of pages within several dozen files, including personal returns filed by Trump and his wife Melania, along with the aforementioned business entities such as DJT Managing Member LLC and DJT Holdings.

Martin Press, a top tax lawyer from the Florida-based Gunster law office, said USA Today The returns must be seen in the right context.

“An income tax return is merely that,” Press spoke to the paper. “It determines what is income and how it is taxed. It is not designed as a balance sheet showing historical or current values of assets.”

For years, Democrats have long sought Trump’s returns and suggested the former president engaged in malfeasance—a narrative that echoed through corporate media outlets. Trump’s administration refused to comply with a request for documents in 2019, triggering a long court battle that spanned his presidency and ended after he was elected.

Court battles over these documents lasted until November. The U.S. Supreme Court did not block any court rulings and granted access to the Ways and Means group. The law does not require the President to release his returns.

“The Democrats should have never done it, the Supreme Court should have never approved it, and it’s going to lead to horrible things for so many people,” Trump also stated Friday.