Trump tax returns

The vote came after a yearslong feud between the former president and Democratic lawmakers over the tax returns.

Our power to oversee the executive is broad. - "Congress is the Article I branch. The JCT report also found issues with the IRS auditing on the matter." 6 select committee referred Trump](https://www.axios.com/2022/12/19/january-6-committee-trump-criminal-charges) on Monday to the Department of Justice on at least four criminal charges for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), who chairs the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight, said in a statement that the planned release was "a triumph" for the idea that "no one person is above the law." [a statement](https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/122022-3) that the committee's work "has revealed the urgent need for legislation to ensure the public can trust in real accountability and transparency during the audit of a sitting president's tax returns — not only in the case of President Trump, but for any president." - House Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal (D-Mass.) asked for access to six years of Trump's tax returns and some of his businesses. [Supreme Court](https://www.axios.com/2022/11/22/supreme-court-trump-tax-return-congress). [Trump's emergency application](https://www.axios.com/2022/10/31/trump-tax-returns-supreme-court). [saying that the IRS failed](https://www.axios.com/2022/12/21/trump-taxes-irs-audit-read-report)to properly audit Trump during his presidency. [published a report](https://waysandmeans.house.gov/sites/democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/files/documents/jctreport.pdf)from the Joint Committee on Taxation summarizing a review of tax returns for 2015-2020 for Trump and his business entities, which will be released once redactions are made. [seeks another White House bid](https://www.axios.com/2022/11/15/trump-2024-campaign-announcement-president) and is entangled in a number of separate investigations.

Internal Revenue Service only began audit after prompting from Congress in 2019, House ways and means committee indicates.

The same paper found that Trump was facing an audit potentially tied to a $72.9m tax refund arising from $700m in losses he claimed in 2009 and that he had rolled over those losses to collect tax benefits on income for the subsequent nine years. Democrats argue it is ill-equipped to audit high-income, complex tax returns, and instead targets filers in lower-income brackets. The audit, a requirement dating back to the Nixon administration, came only after Democrats took control of the House and requested Trump’s tax information. If it was resolved in Trump’s favor, then maybe the IRS rolled over and played dead. The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, has said Trump and his business are still under investigation. “If it was not resolved, the IRS stalled.

It caps a three-year legal saga initiated by Democrats to obtain and release the former president's closely held financial documents.

Neal said he has introduced a bill that would compel the IRS to conduct an audit of a president within 90 days of taking the oath. That information can then be made public by a majority vote of the committee. Trump was the exception. 6 Capitol attack on Monday follow a bad six-week stretch for Trump politically, during which he was blamed for the GOP’s disappointing midterm election results and had what critics called a lackluster 2024 campaign launch marred by controversies. After a lengthy court battle, the Ways and Means Committee obtained the financial filings late last month. Democrats first requested the documents in 2019 to help aid an investigation into the annual audit of presidents.

Donald Trump's tax missteps during his presidency are being laid bare for the world to see. Watch. CC. Off; English. “It's a community that kind of saved ...

[referred for criminal prosecution](https://qz.com/house-jan-6-committee-criminal-referral-trump-doj-1849913664) over his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election by the House Jan. The practice was put in place during the Watergate era, when then-president Richard Nixon and his aides were embroiled in [a tax scandal](https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/23/nixon-trump-tax-returns-1050587). [internal policy adopted in 1997](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/21/only-one-trump-tax-return-as-president-got-mandatory-irs-audit-report-says.html) that’s meant to ensure the annual audit of [the president and vice-president](https://money.cnn.com/2017/04/17/news/economy/president-audit-trump/index.html). [40% off](https://www.amazon.com/Rechargeable-Electric-Handwarmers-Portable-Christmas/dp/B0BG9TB26K?asc_campaign=kinjapromo-20&asc_refurl=https://qz.com/irs-trump-tax-returns-house-committee-1849918118&asc_source=&imprToken=eec28dc1-219f-ae9f-d96&ots=1&slotNum=1&tag=kinjapromo-20) This is a major failure of the IRS under the prior administration, and certainly not what we had hoped to find…I’ve proposed legislation to put the program above reproach.” — [about three decades’](https://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/hillary-clinton-releases-eight-years-of-tax-returns-120882) worth of disclosures. 20), the panel [voted 24-16](https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/donald-trump-tax-returns-release-house-committee?mod=hp_lead_pos1) to release the tax filings as well as its review of the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) Mandatory Audit Program under the prior administration. [finally got access](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-house-panel-gets-trumps-tax-returns-after-long-legal-battle-cnn-2022-11-30/) to six years of the former president’s tax returns, from 2015 to 2021. [in the next couple of days](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-21/trump-s-tax-returns-to-take-few-days-to-be-redacted-for-release?sref=P6Q0mxvj) once private information is redacted, but the committee’s review anticipated some of the most striking findings, painting a damning picture of the IRS. They provide up to 12 hours of heat on a single charge and you can control the specific heat levels they are outputting. The findings helped validate concerns that the White House [may have pressured](https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/19/irs-audit-president-1601120) IRS agents to go easy on Trump’s returns. The former president’s individual income tax returns filed in 2018, 2019, and 2020 were not selected for audit until after he left office in 2021.

A congressional panel says the IRS failed to pursue mandatory audits of Donald Trump on a timely basis during his presidency.

“Because of the dismantling of funding to the IRS, they have not been able to do their job,” said Rep. 6 committee voted to make a criminal referral to the Justice Department for Trump’s role in sparking the violent insurrection at the U.S. And he’s the subject of growing criticism from fellow Republicans for contributing to the party’s underwhelming performance in last month’s midterms. “They did not have the specialized staff to do it for that high-income category — not just this person, but people who fall into that category.” “We must express disagreement with the decision not to engage any specialists when facing returns with a high degree of complexity,” the tax committee report states. The vote was the culmination of a yearslong fight between Trump and Democrats that has played out everywhere from the campaign trail to the halls of Congress and the Supreme Court. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the chamber would “move swiftly” to advance the legislation. The documents released Tuesday indicate that Trump continued to collect tax benefits from those losses through 2018. [report released](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-house-ways-and-means-committee-votes-on-release-of-donald-trumps-tax-returns) by the Democratic majority on the House Ways and Means Committee indicated the Trump administration may have disregarded an IRS requirement dating back to 1977 that mandates audits of a president’s tax filings. “Over our objections in opposition, Democrats in the Ways and Means Committee have unleashed a dangerous new political weapon that overturns decades of privacy protections,” he told reporters. The IRS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. But the report found that the audit process was “dormant, at best.”

Sometime soon — possibly within the next few days — a congressional committee led by Democrats will begin doling out former President Donald Trump's income ...

A former editor and reporter for the New York Times, he is author of “TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald.” Had Republicans been more willing to compel Trump to comply with the traditions and requirements of tax disclosures, it would have been harder to label the House Ways and Means effort as partisan. What is new is the extent to which Trump and his cohorts may have run roughshod over institutional checks and balances designed to prevent presidents from grifting while in office — and to also help ensure that financial conflicts of interest don’t collide with sound public-policymaking. The IRS instituted mandated audits of presidential tax returns in 1977 in response to a tax scandal that ensnared former President Richard Nixon. 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. 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.

The move could offer a first hand look into his finances, which he has long tried to shield.

Official copies of the former president's tax returns, which are now expected to be released before Republicans take control of Congress on 3 January, should settle the matter. In 2020, the New York Times obtained leaked copies of 18 years of Mr Trump's tax returns. The House Ways and Means Committee had first sought the returns when Democrats took over the lower chamber of Congress in 2019. "Every American taxpayer who may get on the wrong side of majority in Congress is now at risk." At the time, he said he would do so after an Internal Revenue Service audit had concluded. It also disclosed that the then-president was in a fight with the Internal Revenue Service over the legitimacy of a $72.9m tax refund he had claimed and owed more than $400m in debt due by 2024.

The main tax committee in the House voted Tuesday night to release six years of tax returns belonging to former President Trump as part of an investigation ...

“Donald Trump had big deductions, big credits, and big losses—but seldom a big tax bill,” Ways and Means Committee member Rep. “Trump claimed tens of millions of dollars in losses and credits without the type of substantiation an ordinary taxpayer would likely provide.” Trump reported $11.3 million made from interest and $16.5 million in losses incurred from his real estate businesses and other companies. On the same day, the IRS initiated its first audit of Donald Trump’s tax returns,” Beyer wrote. Trump’s returns likely look similar to those of many other wealthy tax cheats — hundreds of partnership interests, highly-questionable deductions, and debts that can be shifted around to wipe out tax liabilities.” These were distributed over the years that the JCT performed its examinations of Trump’s returns. The presidential audit program is an IRS policy outlined in the agency’s regulatory manual, not a federal law. locations that are within the jurisdictions of the IRS, they quickly concluded that in fact the audit did not occur,” he said. “The IRS takes years to finish complicated audits.” The IRS has a mandatory audit program for sitting presidents, but didn’t audit Trump until more than two years after he assumed the presidency. “The presidential audit program is broken. The vote was 24-16 and fell along party lines, with Democrats voting in favor and Republicans voting against.

The House report says the IRS failed to conduct mandatory reviews of Trump's tax returns, and it recommends a new federal law requiring the audits.

The proposal was inspired by Trump's refusal to release his returns until the courts and Congress compelled disclosure. - There were no indications that Trump "took steps to expeditiously and timely resolve outstanding tax issues while in office," the report said. “They have yet to complete a single audit of Mr. Although the memo said an IRS manager did not believe the dislike was warranted, it said "animosity between the two does make the examination a little more difficult.” - Another internal IRS memo hinted at potential difficulties in handling one of Trump's tax filings. He paid no federal taxes in the COVID-19-ravaged year of 2020 because he reported income losses of $4.8 million, according to the Cheung did not immediately respond Wednesday to messages seeking comment on the delayed audits and congressional questions about tax write-offs. Trump filed tax returns in 2017 for the prior two tax years. But there's little time left in Congress' schedule to enact the change into law before year's end, when Republicans take narrow control of the House. But the IRS did not start audits on the filings until 2019. Trump.” [report](https://waysandmeans.house.gov/sites/democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/files/documents/JCTreport_0.pdf)prepared by the staff of the [Joint Committee on Taxation](https://waysandmeans.house.gov/sites/democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/files/documents/JCTreport_0.pdf)and released by the Democratic majority on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Trump reported negative income on his federal tax returns in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2020.

That same year, the couple claimed a tax refund of $5.47 million, The IRS is required to conduct [mandatory reviews](https://www.irs.gov/irm/part4/irm_04-008-004#idm139994953458320) of presidents' tax returns. - In 2020, they reported a negative income of $4.7 million, with $0 of taxable income and a net tax liability of $0. - The couple reported a negative income of $12.8 million in 2017, with $0 in taxable income and a net tax liability of $750. - In 2019, they reported a total income of $4.4 million, with $2.97 million in taxable income and a net tax liability of $133,445. - In 2016, the couple reported a negative income of $32.2 million and $0 of taxable income and a net tax liability of $750. - The next year, they reported a total income of $24.4 million, with $22.9 million of taxable income and a net tax liability of $999,466. - Trump and Melania Trump reported to the Internal Revenue Service negative total income of $31.7 million in 2015, with $0 in taxable income and a net tax liability of $641,931. - The couple's tax liability was an estimated $1.8 million over the six-year period, the Wall Street Journal

It will take time for lawmakers and the public to digest the trove of documents relating to former President Donald Trump's tax returns released Tuesday ...

Trump, again, had no taxable income in either year, but he was able to carry forward the deduction to future years, further limiting the amount of federal income tax he had to pay. IRS regulators also laid out a strategy at that meeting for evaluating Trump’s finances, setting criteria to make the process manageable given the large number of pass-through entities. The JCT report noted that an IRS agent assigned to audit Trump’s taxes suggested disallowing the entire $21.1 million deduction because Trump did not get a qualified appraisal for the land. [The IRS allows an income tax deduction](https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/conservation-easements) for owners who give up rights to their land for the purpose of conservation, but the IRS has raised questions about whether the value of Trump’s land donation was inflated. Swiftness will be required if the bill is to pass and become law. A site visit occurred in January and agents met with appraisers as recently as November, according to the JCT report. Rich guys can take advantage of the tax law because the IRS doesn’t have the resources to go after them,” said Steven M. Ron Wyden, who chairs the tax writing committee in the Senate, said Wednesday “the IRS was asleep at the wheel, and the presidential audit program is broken. Deductions can limit the amount of income tax owed. The report found that during Trump’s time in office the IRS opened only one “mandatory” audit – for his 2016 tax return. Its stated aim was to review “how the IRS enforces the federal tax laws against, and ensures compliance by a president.” There is no justification for the failure to conduct the required presidential audits until a congressional inquiry was made.

Trump's refusal to voluntarily release his tax returns proved it was politically possible to buck tradition, and politicized the practice.

[ manual ](https://www.irs.gov/irm/part4/irm_04-008-004#idm139994953458320)requires that the President and Vice President’s tax returns are audited each year. [summaries](https://waysandmeans.house.gov/sites/democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/files/documents/jctreport.pdf) of what it learned about Trump’s tax returns after the Supreme Court allowed the IRS to hand them over to Congress in November, after three years of Trump’s objections in court. Not even starting an audit into Trump’s taxes for the first two years of his presidency was “a major failure of the IRS under the prior Administration,” Neal said. Trump’s norm-breaking refusal to voluntarily release his tax information launched the process into the political arena, and already lawmakers are warning of the implications. Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, has also written legislation that would require presidential candidates to make their tax returns public. The House Ways and Means Committee decided to release Trump’s returns by a party line vote on Tuesday, just two weeks before Republicans are set to take control of the chamber. In fact, the committee found that Trump’s returns weren’t under audit until years later, in 2019, and that the IRS during Trump’s first two years in office failed to follow its own manual which requires auditing the President and Vice President’s tax returns each year. Trump’s refusal proved it was politically possible to buck tradition and still get elected, and may have deeply politicized the practice. The IRS When that news came out, Nixon delivered the now-iconic line, “I am not a crook.” Only one year of Trump’s taxes was selected for audit, the report found, and that audit wasn’t completed until after Trump left office. Donald Trump broke that tradition when he ran for office in 2016.

Donald J. Trump paid $1.1 million in federal income taxes in his first three years as president, and paid no taxes in 2020 as his income began to dwindle.

0 –31,756,435 –2,233,975 –32,409,674 –7,435,107 –12,916,948

The IRS never completed its audits of Trump. Now he will have to answer to the public.

“It’s hard to believe that it was anything other than a decision to steer clear of doing the kind of review of the president that is required.” In 10 of the 15 years before he became president, he didn’t pay a single dollar in taxes as a result, according to the Times’s analysis. Still, that legislation is not likely to pass in the Senate, where Democrats would need 10 Republicans to sign on before Congress adjourns for the year. He also earned a total of $38.1 million in interest during his time in the White House, the source of which is not yet known. [beleaguered by staffing shortages](https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2022/05/millions-tax-returns-are-currently-delayed-due-irs-staff-shortages/366580/), and, according to the report, Trump was being represented by a heavyweight legal team well versed in tax law, including the former IRS chief legal counsel and partners in a multinational law firm. But reports published Tuesday by the [Ways and Means Committee](https://waysandmeans.house.gov/sites/democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/files/documents/2022.12.20%20Final%20Report%20House%20Ways%20and%20Means.pdf) and the [Joint Committee on Taxation](https://waysandmeans.house.gov/sites/democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/files/documents/jctreport.pdf) provide a glimpse at the most troubling parts of Trump’s tax returns — and at the IRS’s failure to hold him to account. That suggests that the audits didn’t represent an insurmountable task that would have warranted the kind of egregious delays that have occurred. According to the committee’s report, it wasn’t until 2019, two years into Trump’s presidency, that the IRS initiated an audit of his tax returns. The reports provide some explanations for why the IRS failed to audit on time. The agency did so on the same day the committee asked for copies of Trump’s tax returns and related audits, and it didn’t begin its audits of tax returns filed during his presidency until after he had left office. “This is a major failure of the IRS under the prior administration, and certainly not what we had hoped to find.” The IRS has had an agency policy of auditing individual tax returns for presidents and vice presidents every year dating back to the Nixon era.

Wyden's assessment followed a report that the IRS had only started one mandatory audit of Trump's tax returns during his four years as president.

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung slammed Democrats' actions, calling the "unprecedented leak" as "proof they are playing a political game they are losing" and urging them to release tax returns of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband. [rejected Trump's final bid](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/22/supreme-court-rules-on-trump-tax-records-being-given-to-congress.html) to stop Congress from obtaining years of his taxes. Trump broke with decades of electoral precedent by refusing to publicly release his tax returns, both when he was running for president in 2016 and after winning that election. That vote followed a yearslong legal battle with Trump, who had fought to keep his tax information out of the committee's hands. "These are issues much bigger than Donald Trump. [the IRS had only started one mandatory audit](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/21/only-one-trump-tax-return-as-president-got-mandatory-irs-audit-report-says.html) of Trump's personal income tax returns during his four years in the White House — even though the agency's rules required annual audits of the president's tax returns.

The presidency of Donald J. Trump, a congressional report reveals, was marked by some of the same questionable tax maneuvers that had characterized his ...

He wants a refund for all but $750, the same total income tax he paid in the both of the following two years. Trump is currently seeking a refund of nearly all of the $641,181 in income taxes he paid for 2015 using the same credit for historic rehabilitation, the report noted. In a bit of circular reasoning, the agency ultimately determined that the fees were too “difficult to examine unless they were found to be fraudulent payments.” The I.R.S. After The Times published its investigation revealing years of Mr. Yet the agency set a high bar for what to examine. The records, according to the report, depict an agency that seemed reluctant to aggressively examine a wealthy taxpayer who was difficult to deal with and had complex returns. The committee also questioned whether Mr. The outcome of that review was not known. The congressional report said the I.R.S. The committee questioned whether the loans actually “were disguised gifts” to evade gift taxes and allow the children to write off interest payments to their father. Trump had employed while president to lower his income taxes, and about failures by the Internal Revenue Service to fully investigate those deductions.

The revelation that the agency had not audited Donald J. Trump during his first two years in office despite a mandatory presidential audit program raised ...

“The I.R.S. The article prompted the I.R.S. The committee cited internal I.R.S. The committee’s discovery that the I.R.S. That scandal led the I.R.S. In fact, the few glimpses of Mr. Desmond, as general counsel of the I.R.S. The I.R.S. The disclosure of routine audits of Mr. [reported this year](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/06/us/politics/comey-mccabe-irs-audits.html) that the I.R.S. WASHINGTON — The I.R.S. Late Tuesday, a House committee revealed that the I.R.S.

After more than 3½ years of pursuit, Representative Richard Neal finally had access to Donald Trump's tax returns, but very little time to make the most ...

The president would be required to submit the documents for that review and the IRS would be required to make them public. The bill would require the IRS to launch the audit of a president’s tax returns within 90 days of inauguration. That left the matter in the hands of Neal and his fellow committee Democrats. He specifically cited the need to assess how the IRS “audits and enforces the Federal tax laws against a president.” And on Tuesday night, addressing reporters in the gilded office of the Ways and Means chair he soon will have to vacate, he held up a copy of legislation he’s proposing based on the committee’s analysis of Trump’s tax returns. Republicans complained Neal and the Democrats simply were on a political fishing expedition. “The idea was to prepare the case. The controversial move was made to highlight what Neal said was the failure of the IRS to launch an audit of Trump until two years into his presidency. The reports were set to be released Tuesday night, while six years of Trump’s tax returns would follow in the coming days after personally identifiable information was redacted, Neal said. It is the power to embarrass, harass, or destroy a private citizen through disclosure of their tax returns,” Brady said. Then, after the Supreme Court cleared the way in November for the Treasury Department to release the returns to his committee, Republicans complained he was moving too fast. A 1976 law, enacted after revelations that President Richard Nixon had tried to use federal tax information for political purposes, made all individual tax returns confidential by default.

Donald Trump speaking with a dark background around him. During Trump's four years in the White House, he paid a grand total of $1.1 million in federal income ...

funding in the omnibus spending deal that was reached, and they have vowed to eliminate all of it after taking control of the House in January. In the paucity of the taxes that he pays year after year, the scale of his tax-avoidance efforts, and the willingness to talk publicly about his ability to exploit the tax system, Trump stands alone. There, in a nutshell, is the challenge facing the I.R.S. In analyzing Trump’s tax returns, the Joint Committee on Taxation highlighted a number of questionable practices, including deductions he took for business use of his personal plane, settling the Trump University lawsuit, and charitable contributions made in cash. fail to understand why the fact that counsel and an accounting firm participated in tax preparation ensures the accuracy of the returns,” the analysts from the Joint Committee commented acidly. The Joint Committee also questioned some loans that Trump made to his children, asking whether they may have been “disguised gifts,” and some expenses he claimed from his activities as a sole proprietor. examiner appears to have relied on the fact that the returns were prepared by professional accountants and lawyers, assuming that they insured the information from Trump and his businesses was correct. Rather than authenticating each of the many, many deductions that Trump claimed, including charitable deductions for land easements and loans to his children, the I.R.S. During the trial, his former accounting firm, Mazars, insisted it knew nothing about the activities that led to the conviction, including providing executives with company-funded apartments, car leases, and other personal benefits that the executives didn’t report to tax officials. The House Ways and Means Committee’s report and an accompanying one from the Joint Committee on Taxation, which helped analyze Trump’s tax returns, confirm that the I.R.S. With Trump in the White House, the I.R.S. For that reason, it is very good news that the Inflation Reduction Act, which Democrats passed this summer, authorized a significant increase in funding for the tax agency to audit the wealthiest taxpayers.

The two new reports on the IRS's handling of former President Donald Trump's tax returns raise more questions than answers. The most important one is: Why ...

But a more important question remains: Why did the IRS slow-walk its mandatory audits of the then-president’s tax returns. The IRS’s first instinct often is to refuse to explain its internal decisions. It is unlikely that most taxpayers would get an opportunity to question how many examiners the IRS uses to review their returns. For example, the examiner apparently assumed the information on Trump’s return was accurate since it had been prepared and reviewed by a Trump lawyer and accounting firm. But while it had been reviewing portions of these returns to address specific concerns, it did not select any of the returns Trump filed during his presidency for review until April 3, 2019. And as a result of what the agency audit files described as “case sensitivity” the examiner didn’t request help from other, more specialized, staffers. But we do need to know, for example, whether Trump’s returns were handled differently from, say, Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. [A House Ways & Means Committee report](https://waysandmeans.house.gov/sites/democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/files/documents/2022.12.20%20Final%20Report%20House%20Ways%20and%20Means.pdf) describes the agency’s review of Trump’s tax returns. But the Ways & Means description of IRS activities tells a very different, though complex, story. Unlike every president since Richard Nixon, Trump refused to make his tax returns public, either as a candidate or while serving in the White House. The IRS’s staff manual says explicitly, “[t]he returns require expeditious handling at all levels to ensure prompt completion of the examinations.” The two new reports on the IRS’s handling of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns raise more questions than answers.

Not only did Trump's candidates lose big in '22, but he couldn't even make money selling White House influence.

[As the New York Times reports](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/21/us/politics/trump-taxes-income.html), "the entirety of his core businesses — mostly real estate, golf courses and hotels — continued to report losses every year." [He had a "negative income" for four out of the six years](https://www.salon.com/2022/12/21/calls-for-investigation-after-returns-expose-audit-lie--and-years-of-negative-income/) that were released to the public. [that turned out to be an NFT peddling scheme](https://www.salon.com/2022/12/16/how-and-elon-build-their-cults-exploiting-right-wing-insecurity/), a naked grift less suited to a former president than to the has-been reality TV star that he is at heart. Trump even had a racket going with the Secret Service, [where he would routinely book them at Trump properties](https://www.salon.com/2020/03/06/trump-org-charged-taxpayers-eight-times-more-for-secret-service-stays-than-it-claimed-documents/) for about eight times what he claimed he was charging them. [Diligent reporters documented how the Saudi government ](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/saudi-funded-lobbyist-paid-for-500-rooms-at-trumps-hotel-after-2016-election/2018/12/05/29603a64-f417-11e8-bc79-68604ed88993_story.html)would routinely buy out blocks of rooms at Trump hotels. Even those who had long been [skeptical that a guy who hawked ringtones](https://www.salon.com/2020/09/29/biden-should-attack-trump-as-a-massive-ludicrous-failure--not-just-a-tax-cheat/) was really a "billionaire" were astonished at how very, very bad he is business. [after years of court battles, releasing Trump's tax returns](https://www.salon.com/2022/12/21/and-the-irs-a-massive-cheat-and-a-hapless-corrupt-agency/) from 2015-2020. Despite his years of dubious claims to be a "billionaire," the tax returns show that [he spent most of his presidency losing money hand over fist](https://www.salon.com/2022/12/21/calls-for-investigation-after-returns-expose-audit-lie--and-years-of-negative-income/). As [Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington (CREW) documented in 2020](https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-reports/president-trumps-3400-conflicts-of-interest/), government officials, political groups, and special interest groups would curry favor by holding events at Trump properties. [Hopeful Republican op-eds predicting Trump ](https://rollcall.com/2022/12/14/the-beginning-of-the-end-for-donald-trump-probably/)has lost his luster have become a cottage industry. [who seems incapable of even leaving](https://mail.google.com/mail/u/1/popout?ver=jqsb9o0r3qzf&q=standing%20room%20only&qs=true&qid=2FD535AD-755A-4234-A6BE-52AB74731AD1&aqid=CC9111F2-4EB8-4AB1-A4E7-0228867C465E&search=query&th=%23thread-f%3A1752734244454104373&qt=area.1.hotel.1.just.1.only.1.room.1.rooms.1.space.1.stand.1.standing.1.standings.1.stands.1&cvid=2) his house these days. Trump's allure to the GOP primary voting base isn't just that he triggers the liberals, but that he ruffles the feathers of the Republican establishment.

The Democratic Ways and Means committee, under the guise of trying to determine if the Internal Revenue Service was properly auditing presidential tax returns, ...

The action of the Vatican appears to belittle the tragedy of abortion. Please don’t point out any other problems for these incompetents to look into fixing. A minister of the truth should not cavort with the master of lies. I always considered him a role model of what a Christian should not be. There is no other reason than a political one to release Donald Trump’s tax returns at this time. Trump has announced his candidacy for 2024 presidency, therefore, if the ex-president has nothing to hide then he needs to show the public that he has legally paid his fair share of taxes, whether his declaration of success is legitimate and if there are anymore lies he is covering up.

Tax expert Edward McCaffery didn't think there would be much new to learn from Trump's taxes, but he's quick to admit he was wrong.

At various junctures, they refer to the length of Trump’s tax returns, their own lack of resources and the fact that Trump returns were signed and approved by lawyers and accountants. And this notwithstanding the fact that the Internal Revenue Manual, or IRM, What kind of guarantee can you put in place that the IRM procedures are being followed?” The answer was, “That’s an interesting question.” Even my under-slept, unprepared first-year law students can do better than that. The other reason could be that the price of the sales was so favorable – perhaps because he was president? Trump’s legal team, of course, fought to keep the returns secret and Surprise number two is that the IRS did nothing. They can play a game I call “Tax Planning 101,” following the simple advice to “ [Buy, Borrow, Die](https://www.wsj.com/articles/buy-borrow-die-how-rich-americans-live-off-their-paper-wealth-11625909583).” This strategy involves buying assets that typically go up in value over time, like real estate or stock, holding these assets until they die, and then allowing the taxable gain to magically disappear under the stepped-up basis on death rule. The surprise, rather, is that Trump actually did pay significant income taxes in 2018 and 2019. He is the author of “Fair Not Flat: How to Make the Tax System Better and Simpler” and founder of the So the question becomes, why did he sell any capital assets at all in 2018 in particular? That’s the outlier, the dog that is barking. [tax-avoiding family](https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/03/opinions/in-trumps-family-the-apple-never-really-fell-mccaffery-opinion/index.html), why would he ever pay income tax?

The agency lacks the resources to go after rich taxpayers. For years, a single revenue agent was responsible for the audits of Donald J. Trump.

The report suggested that as the I.R.S. Graetz, the deputy assistant secretary for tax policy at the Treasury Department from 1990 to 1991, said the acquiescence of the I.R.S. Trump’s audits laid bare the difficulty that the I.R.S. The process of auditing Mr. The Biden administration has emphasized its ambitions of modernizing the antiquated technology at the I.R.S. The I.R.S. He added that “many decisions within the I.R.S. Neal, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, has introduced legislation that would require the I.R.S. [how depleted the I.R.S. Republicans have for years accused the I.R.S. The tax agency itself acknowledged that it was still overwhelmed by the complexity of Mr. The number of agents assigned to the audit team: one.

On the one hand, it would seem to be basic decency that a president, even if viewed as merely the chief executive of the federal government, ...

As a consequence, I do not intend to make my tax returns public and I will resist any future attempts to force me to do so. Pressuring a candidate to the presidency to make his tax returns public would fuel the idea that individual privacy is secondary to state interests. After all, he will have much power to influence the amount and uses of the taxes of his voters as well as of those who vote against him. On the one hand, it would seem to be basic decency that a president, even if viewed as merely the chief executive of the federal government, as well as a major candidate for the job, disclose his tax returns, as is done since 1976. On the other hand, a president or presidential candidate would have credible reasons to object. Take the case of Mr.

"...we learned, among other things, that Steve Mnuchin was running the IRS like a corrupt arm of Donald Trump's criminal enterprise," Glenn Kirschner said.

"How...long do the American people have to suffer the indignity of rampant corruption in government with no accountability for those who plainly violate their oath of office & betray the public trust?" "It's time for a renaissance of ethics in government. "It's time for true & sweeping reform," Kirschner added. There have been some tweaks to IRS rulemaking after Trump left office. Trump's early budgets continuously slashed the IRS' budget, even as Mnuchin called for more resources. Attorney Glenn Kirschner, who is now an [MSNBC](https://www.newsweek.com/topic/msnbc) analyst.

Republicans called the legislation an attack on former President Donald Trump, while Democrats said it was necessary for the integrity of the presidency.

Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), warned on Tuesday that he could use the same obscure law Neal did to spring Trump’s tax returns against members of President Joe Biden’s family. At the same time, it allowed them to keep the spotlight on their disclosure of Trump’s scant federal income tax payments. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), said Republicans could have found common ground with Democrats if their intentions were truly to improve presidential audits, but the legislation instead serves as “a flimsy excuse that for years has been used to justify the political targeting of former President Trump.” While the presidential audit proposal seems doomed this year, Rep. “And then you would quickly realize someone just wants to release your medical records and any excuse will do.” Five Republicans voted for the legislation, even though GOP leaders said it was a sham designed to politically damage Trump, who has launched another bid for the White House.

The Democrat-led measure provides a capstone to a yearslong investigation of Trump's tenure as the first president in recent history not to publicly disclose ...

When Trump defied traditional presidential practice by refusing to disclose his tax returns it raised questions and spurred the committee's investigation. The committee's lengthy investigation revealed this week that the IRS had failed to pursue audits of Trump on a timely basis during his presidency, as required under the tax agency's protocol. The practice of auditing presidential tax returns grew from the Watergate era, when then-President Richard Nixon was under scrutiny by Congress. The wealthy businessman declined to fully explain his finances during his 2016 campaign and while in the White House. "These improved guardrails will provide Americans the assurance they deserve that our tax code applies evenly and fairly to all of us, no matter how powerful," said Democratic Rep. The legislation faced staunch opposition from Republicans and has little chance of becoming law in the final days of this Congress.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House took action Thursday after disclosures that the IRS never fully reviewed Donald Trump's tax returns during his presidency, ...

When Trump defied traditional presidential practice by refusing to disclose his tax returns it raised questions and spurred the committee's investigation. It would require an updated report on the president's filings in six months. The practice of auditing presidential tax returns grew from the Watergate era, when then-President Richard Nixon was under scrutiny by Congress. The committee's lengthy investigation revealed this week that the IRS had failed to pursue audits of Trump on a timely basis during his presidency, as required under the tax agency's protocol. The wealthy businessman declined to fully explain his finances during his 2016 campaign and while in the White House. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., during the debate on the bill. It would be the first formal release of his financial situation from his time in office. He said the “unprecedented action jeopardizes the rights of every American to be protected from political targeting.” “These improved guardrails will provide Americans the assurance they deserve that our tax code applies evenly and fairly to all of us, no matter how powerful,” said Democratic Rep. The legislation faced staunch opposition from Republicans and has little chance of becoming law in the final days of this Congress. The committee's report also highlighted shortcomings at the IRS, which has been criticized for auditing lower-income people more often than the rich. The legislation would turn what had been a long-standing post-Watergate norm into established federal policy.

The IRS went easy on Trump's tax returns because he used accountants, congressional report says ... In 2019, an IRS agent recommended a "limited" examination into ...

“We also fail to understand why the fact that counsel and an accounting firm participated in tax preparation ensures the accuracy of the returns,” the report said. "While the IRS delved into more issues in 2016 than 2015, we are not comfortable with any reliance on professional tax preparation to ensure accuracy, and it does not appear any specialists were called in to assist," the report said. In its resignation letter to the Trump Organization in February, Mazars Group General Counsel William J. The agency doesn’t confirm the existence of investigations until court documents are publicly available.” Trump was the first president not to make his tax returns public since the 1970s. The returns had been expected to be released this week, but Ways and Means Chair Rep. Special agents review information received for further criminal investigation. In fact, Trump's own accountants ditched him this year after questions were raised about the accuracy of the information he was giving them. Trump for the years ending June 30, 2011 — June 30, 2020, should no longer be relied upon and you should inform any recipients thereof who are currently relying upon one or more of those documents that those documents should not be relied upon.” [pressing for legislation](https://waysandmeans.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/neal-floor-statement-hr-9640-presidential-tax-filing-and-audit) that would require the IRS to publish and audit presidential tax returns. [reported](https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-sorry-but-its-just-easier-and-cheaper-to-audit-the-poor) in 2019 that the IRS audits the working poor [at about the same rate as the wealthiest 1%](https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-now-audits-poor-americans-at-about-the-same-rate-as-the-top-1-percent), in part because audits of wealthier Americans are more time-consuming and require more resources. [ report](https://waysandmeans.house.gov/sites/democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/files/documents/jctreport.pdf) this week that it was not able to interview any IRS agents directly, but its review of the audit materials show that the agent who did a “preliminary risk analysis to determine the scope of the examination” of Trump's 2015 return supported a “limited scope.”

An entire office of tax experts has been quietly studying former President Donald Trump's still-unreleased tax returns for weeks and produced a report ...

“Verification of the foreign tax payments made will ensure that the eligible amounts are being claimed as a credit.” “If the property is not used in a rental real estate activity, it raises the question of whether the residence might be held for personal use.” tax in the returns examined — just $1.8 million over the six-year period. The question here is whether those are legit. The easements allow people to take charitable deductions for promising to cordon off property from development to protect wildlife, for example. The IRS later reversed itself, though JCT says it doesn’t know why. And if those losses are more than big enough to wipe out income in one year, the remainder can be deducted in subsequent years too, offsetting earnings and thereby reducing tax bills in them as well. If he gave money outright to his kids, it would likely be subject to a stiff 40 percent tax. That raises eyebrows because that could be a way to get around the gift tax. JCT did not provide additional details about the loans. Trump (speaking) reported $50,000 in gross income and $46,162 in travel expenses. Little has been publicly known about how the IRS goes about implementing its long-standing policy of auditing every president.