The House Ways and Means Committee voted Tuesday to release one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump’s tax returns, a move that he has been trying to prevent for years.
CNN reports:
The committee also released a report Tuesday that detailed six years’ worth of the former president’s tax returns, including his claims of massive annual losses that significantly reduced his tax burden.
Chairman Richard Neal and fellow Democrats said Tuesday that the records they obtained showed that the presidential audit program failed to work as intended. The Massachusetts Democrat charged that the required audit of Trump’s taxes “did not occur,” as his returns were only subjected to the mandatory audit once, in 2019, after Democrats inquired.
“The research that was done as it relates to the mandatory audit program was nonexistent,” Neal told reporters after the committee hearing.
Even though the full returns haven’t yet been made public, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), said Tuesday evening on CNN that Trump had tens of millions of dollars in questionable deductions that suggest massive tax fraud, telling host Erin Burnett:
“I think you will see tens of millions of dollars in these returns that were claimed without adequate substantiation. The extent to which the IRS made an effort to get that substantiation, I invite you to look at the reports. But I think you’ll be surprised by how little there is, and I have my doubts that another taxpayer could go into audit and provide as little as was provided here and expect to have a completed audit.”
Doggett’s comments were echoed by Trump biographer Tim O’Brien in a column he wrote for Bloomberg.
What a fine mess he has gotten himself into. There are certainly more surprises to come, but a pair of summaries of the House Ways and Means Committee’s analysis of Trump’s personal and business tax records from 2015 through 2020 contained interesting revelations that will trouble the former president and certainly draw the attention of prosecutors.
O’Brien said of special interest are the deductions Trump took to reduce his taxable income:
“The records question the validity of about $300 million in tax deductions claimed by a skein of Trump holding companies for such write-offs as charitable giving, operating losses and business expenses. Both reports speculate that about $51,000 was given to his three eldest children as gifts, but may have been disguised as loans to avoid tax payments.
“As more information about his finances surfaces in coming days, it will be a reminder of the extent to which the former president played a shell game with his wealth and business interests while in power — and what he might try to get away with again if he occupies the Oval Office in the future.”
As long suspected, the reason Trump never voluntarily released his tax returns is because they contain detailed information about his financial crimes and who he does business with.