A House committee released several years of Donald Trump’s federal tax returns on Friday, ending the former president’s extensive effort to keep the financial documents private.
A congressional report released earlier this month analyzed the documents and showed Trump and his wife Melania paid no federal income tax in 2020, the last full year he was in office. From 2015 to 2020, the period for which the committee obtained returns, Donald and Melania Trump had several years in which they reported negative income and little or no tax liability. The report also found that the Internal Revenue Service failed to conduct mandatory audits of Trump during his first two years in office.
In 2016, Trump became the first major political party candidate for president in four decades to refuse to release his tax returns. He continued to do so once in office. In 2019, the House ways and means committee, which has the legal authority to see any taxpayer’s federal returns, requested the documents from the treasury department. The Trump administration refused to provide them, setting off a legal battle over the next three years. In November, the US supreme court ruled that the committee could access the returns.
The release comes as Trump, who is running for president in 2024, continues to face major scrutiny about his business practices. Earlier this month, a New York jury found the Trump organization guilty of 17 counts of criminal tax fraud. Even though Trump was not a part of the trial, prosecutors said he was aware of the off-the-books practices that were at issue. Lawyers for the Trump organization blamed Allen Weisselberg, the company’s longtime chief financial officer.
The New York state attorney general, Letitia James, is also suing Trump for fraud related to inflating his net worth.
More details soon …
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