United States: Six years of Mr. Donald Trump’s tax returns were made public by a congressional committee, ending the former president’s long-running effort to keep them secret.
The documents, dating from 2015 to 2020, provide details about the complex finances and foreign bank accounts of Mr. Trump, who was accused of abusing the presidency for personal profit.
The tax returns were released to the public by the House Ways and Means committee, after a long-running battle over their disclosure in the Supreme Court.
The reports released by the Joint Committee on Taxation stated that Mr. Trump claimed large losses before and throughout his presidency that he carried forward to reduce or practically eliminate his tax burden. The returns show that the former president carried forward a $105 million loss in 2015 and $73 million in 2016.
From 2015 to 2017, Mr. Trump reported bank accounts in Britain, China, and Ireland. In 2018, the republican leader reported an account only in Britain.
Mr. Daniel Goldman, a congressman from New York who was counsel to House Democrats in Mr. Trump’s first impeachment, noted that “generally, you only have bank accounts in a foreign country if you are doing transactions in that country’s currency. What business was Mr. Trump doing in China while he was president?”
The documents consist of nearly 6,000 pages, including more than 2,700 pages of individual tax returns from Mr. Trump as well as Ms. Melania and more than 3,000 pages from Mr. Trump’s businesses.
Mr. Trump responded to the release, stating that “the Democrats should have never done it, the Supreme Court should have never approved it, and it’s going to lead to horrible things for so many people. The great USA divide will now grow far worse. The radical left Democrats have weaponized everything, but remember, that is a dangerous two-way street.”
The former president added that “the “Trump” tax returns once again show how proudly successful I have been as well as how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive for creating thousands of jobs as well as magnificent structures and enterprises.”