Trump’s Tax Returns Released Showing Him Paying Limited Income Taxes

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Six years of personal tax returns for past President Donald Trump are now publicly available — sans personally identifying info like Social Security numbers, and the copies of the docs publicly released on Friday confirm earlier info from the Congressional body known as the Joint Committee on Taxation that he paid nothing in personal income taxes to federal authorities in 2020.

He was claiming huge amounts of income, but he was also carrying over large losses. The losses he claimed in 2020 passed $16 million, which was millions ahead of the income he cited. The info was made available after a vote by the House Ways and Means Committee, which obtained the underlying docs after years of going back and forth in court in a stand-off that reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Federal rules allow certain leaders in Congress to obtain personal tax details for individual Americans, and previously established standards also allow the release of some of those details, although the steps obviously aren’t taken very often. Ordinarily, presidential contenders and officeholders throughout recent decades have released their personal tax info of their own volition, allowing a look at potential conflicts of interest affecting potential or current White House occupants. Trump refused.

For 2017, Trump paid just $750 in personal income taxes — although his bills reached significantly higher levels in the remaining two years of his presidency, including 2018 and 2019. The consistency with which others seeking the presidency have revealed their personal tax info makes it extremely difficult to believe any contentions from Trump and Republicans that sharing Donald’s financial details will somehow establish some kind of damaging precedent. A precedent already existed, and it’s Trump who broke with it.

Not only did the IRS also wait until two years of Trump’s presidency already passed before opening an audit of his personal tax filings despite an agency policy outlining more consistent audits for any president, the agency evidently conducted only one “mandatory” audit throughout his four years. The examination of his filings started in 2019 covering his 2016 taxes. IRS agents opened an audit of Trump’s 2015 returns, but available details indicate the agency didn’t designate it as “mandatory.” Adding to questions about the timing and handling of this agency interest, the IRS only started its audit of the 2016 returns after an initial request from the Ways and Means Committee for Trump’s records. The panel issued that request after Dems took control of the House following the 2018 midterm elections.

Image: Gage Skidmore/ Creative Commons