The US House Ways and Means Committee Friday released six years of former President Donald Trump’s individual income tax returns, as well as filings from multiple Trump business entities.
The release followed a committee vote to publish its investigation into the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) Mandatory Audit Program, which was supposed to audit Trump’s tax returns each year while he was president. The investigation determined that during the prior administration, the program could be described as dormant “at best,” as it completed no audits while the former president was in office. Only one audit was ever opened during his term in office, and this occurred two years into his presidency, on the same day that the committee requested to see evidence of his returns.
The report noted that the president has an obligation to pay taxes, “Just like every other American.” It stated that this responsibility is largely voluntary and involves public faith that tax laws are administrated fairly and without favor, especially where the president has the power to sign bills into law which could affect his personal financial situation.
According to the report, Trump declared a negative income in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2020 and paid $1,500 in income taxes for the years 2016 and 2017. Further, in 2020, Trump and his wife Melania claimed a tax refund of $5.47 million. In his opening statement on the report, Committee Chairman Richard Neal expressed that:
We anticipated the IRS would expand the mandatory audit program to account for the complex nature of the former president’s financial situation yet found no evidence of that. This is a major failure of the IRS under the prior administration, and certainly not what we had hoped to find.
Neal emphasized that “Our work has always been to ensure our tax laws are administered fairly and without preference, because at times, even the power of a president can loom too large.”
This release comes after the US Supreme Court rejected a Trump request to restrict access to the documents.
