United States: The Democratic-controlled House ways and means committee has voted to publicly release Mr. Donald Trump’s tax returns, which the former US president has long tried to shield.

The decision was taken by the panel after several hours of discussion that ultimately resulted in the supreme court permitting the treasury department to send the returns to Congress. The committee obtained six-year tax returns for Mr. Trump and some of his businesses.

Mr. Brendan Boyle, a committee member, stated that he expected the committee to post the full set of Mr. Trump’s tax returns, except for information such as social security numbers and bank account information.

The panel, which has an eight-seat Democratic majority, agreed on a party-line vote to release information from Mr. Trump’s personal and business tax returns from 2015 to 2020. The committee’s 24-16 vote along party lines followed a more than four-hour closed-door meeting.

The House Ways and Means Committee chairman Mr. Richard Neal released a report about the Internal Revenue Service’s audits of Mr. Trump’s taxes. However, the actual tax returns will be made public in a few days after the redaction of personal information, such as Social Security numbers.

The released documents include a report summarizing Mr. Trump’s personal and business income and tax payments from 2015 through 2020, indicating that the former president and his companies lost millions of dollars during the president’s tenure in the White House.

Texas Representative Mr. Kevin Brady, the committee’s top Republican, claimed that Democrats are making a mistake by publicly disclosing the tax returns of an opposing political party leader.

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