The US House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, which is still led by Democrats until January when the Republicans will take over the Committee and the House, has released a report regarding former president Donald Trump’s (and wife Melania’s) personal taxes and eight business entities, for the period of 2015-2020.
Trump was president from 2016-2020, so the period covers his presidency and a year of campaigning.
US presidents are not required by law to release their tax returns, but for several decades they have done so voluntarily.
The report revealed some interesting data. Although Trump had repeatedly said that his tax returns were under audit by the IRS, and he gave that as a reason not to hand them over to Congress, which other presidents have done for decades, it turns out that only the 2019 returns were being audited. Apparently, the IRS, which should have been auditing the returns every year while Trump was in office, had dropped the ball, due to the returns being “too complicated.”
In the last year of Trump’s presidency, in 2020, he reported a loss of $4.8 million and paid ZERO in taxes. $0 – Nada – Zilch.
The Committee voted 24-16 (Dems vs. Republicans) to release the information. There had been a legal battle to obtain Trump’s returns since 2016.
The report, which can be seen here, shows how the former president and his business reduced his taxable income by reporting business losses over several years. The report has been published online and several news media sites are displaying it.
Now that the Committee has the returns, they will be released, redacted to protect personal information, to the full House of Representatives.
The tax returns show that Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, reported negative income (due to alleged losses) in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2020, and that he paid a total of $1,500 in income taxes for the years 2016 and 2017.
In 2020, as COVID-19 was raging, Trump reported losses amounting to $4.69 million, which resulted in him paying $0 in 2020. He received a refund of $5.47 million.
The report released by the Committee also noted that Trump made several charitable donations in cash, and the Committee said that it will find out if the required proof was submitted for the cash contributions.
The Committee has been fighting to get the returns since 2016. Trump was resistant and said that he was under audit (which was untrue, except for the 2019 returns in 2020), and the IRS refused to hand over the documents, so the committee sued the Treasury Department, the IRS, and former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
Just recently, the case went all the way up to the US Supreme Court, but the justices ruled that they would not intervene, so the IRS was forced to hand over the returns, and they did, this week.
In spite of Trump’s assertions that he was under audit, the Committee’s report shows that the IRS did not audit the president’s tax returns during his first two years in office, which is a requirement that dates back to 1977. Trump repeatedly said that when the audit was done, he would release his taxes to the Committee, but he fought until the bitter end.
The Committee’s report indicates that the IRS will in the future audit Trump in regard to a $72.9 million tax refund that he received due to reporting $700 million in losses in 2009. The tax returns released by the committee show that Trump continued to collect tax benefits from his 2009 losses for 10 more years until 2018, which is why he paid little or no taxes.
Trump is facing many legal battles due to problems with the Trump Organization, investigations about his conduct in the January 6, 2021 insurrection, and tax fraud questions are coming up because of the information revealed on his tax returns. Seemingly immune to his troubles, and very lawyered-up, Trump recently announced that he would run for president again in 2024.