Tax returns of Donald Trump
, President of the United States, controversially refused to release his tax returns after being elected president the first time in 2016, although he promised to do so during his campaign. In 2021, the Manhattan district attorney obtained several years of Trump's tax information, and in late 2022, the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee obtained and released six years of his returns.
Trump repeatedly and falsely claimed that he could not release the returns while they were under audit by the Internal Revenue Service. After Democrats won a majority in the House of Representatives in 2018, Trump sued to prevent his returns from being released by the IRS or his accountants, which were being sought by certain state officials and congressional committees. The Manhattan DA's request for records as part of its criminal probe of the Trump Organization was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, resulting in a 2020 decision rejecting Trump's claims that the president holds absolute immunity from criminal process. In February 2021, Trump's accounting firm Mazars provided the DA eight years of Trump's tax returns.
In May 2019, Ways and Means Committee chair Richard Neal requested six years of Trump's tax records; after appeals were exhausted, he received the documents on November 30, 2022. Four weeks later, the committee voted 24–16 along party lines to release the returns to the public, which was done on December 30. The committee found that the IRS failed to audit Trump's taxes during the first two years of his presidency, and that the only audit conducted during his tenure was never completed.
In 2019, the U.S. House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Mazars for tax and other records related to an investigation into Trump's conduct; an appeal to the Supreme Court resulted in a decision outlining circumstances Congress can request presidential records without violating separation of powers.
Also in 2019, California temporarily enacted legislation to require presidential candidates to release tax returns to be allowed on the primary election ballot, and New York State passed a law allowing the release of state tax returns to congressional committees for valid purposes.
History of controversy
In 1999, while Donald Trump was considering whether to run for president under the Reform Party, he said "probably wouldn't have a problem with" releasing his tax returns if he ran.In April 2011, Trump said that when President Barack Obama produced "his birth certificate ... I'd love to give my tax returns." Obama's birth certificate was released a week later, resulting in Trump's saying his tax returns would be released "at the appropriate time".
An undocumented immigrant housekeeper from Costa Rica working at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, earned $26,792.90 and paid more in federal income taxes than Trump did in 2011.
In 2012, Trump sought to have Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's tax returns released on April 1, which "historically is the time that everybody gives them". That year, Trump also said that not seeing a presidential candidate's tax returns would lead people to think there was "almost, like, something wrong. What's wrong?"
Trump's former political adviser Sam Nunberg said in 2013 and 2014 that Trump had considered the possibility of releasing his tax returns as part of a presidential campaign, believing that showing how little he paid in taxes would make him appear to be a savvy businessman. Nunberg said by November 2014, he had persuaded Trump to reverse course and withhold his tax returns, as Trump decided he "wanted to look rich rather than smart". In May 2014, Trump said in an interview: "If I decide to run for office, I'll produce my tax returns, absolutely and I would love to do that."
2016 campaign
In February 2015, Trump said he would release tax returns if he ran for president. On another occasion that month, he declared: "I have no objection to certainly showing tax returns." Later in February 2015, Trump warned: "I will tell you upfront ... I want to pay as little taxes as I can as a private person". In May 2016, Trump voiced similar sentiments, stating that he tries "very hard to pay as little tax as possible". In 2015, Trump criticized corporate executives and "hedge fund guys" for paying zero or negligible taxes. He also alleged in 2011 and 2012 that half of all Americans do not pay income taxes, stating, "it's a problem," while alluding to "crippling" government debt. In 2012, Trump had criticized President Obama for "only" paying a tax rate of around 20%. Trump announced his candidacy for president in June 2015.In January 2016, Trump was asked by Chuck Todd if he would release his tax returns, to which Trump answered: "we'll be working that over in the next period of time, Chuck. Absolutely.... at the appropriate time, you'll be very satisfied." In February 2016, Trump said he would release his tax returns "robably over the next few months. They're being worked on now." Later that month, Trump falsely claimed that he could not release his tax returns while under audit. Nothing prevents a taxpayer from releasing his own tax returns; the IRS has confirmed that individuals are free to share their own tax information. Every president from Richard Nixon onward has voluntarily released his tax returns annually, and the IRS automatically audits the tax returns of presidents and vice presidents.
In May 2016, Trump said he would not release his tax returns before the November 2016 election. Trump also said in May 2016 that "there's nothing to learn from" his tax returns, and said on ABC News that his tax rate is "none of your business". Trump's refusal broke with tradition, as all major presidential nominees from 1976 onward have released their tax returns.
Trump was criticized for his refusal to release tax information. Mitt Romney called Trump's refusal "disqualifying" and said the only logical reason for Trump was that "there is a bombshell in them." John Fund of National Review feared that the returns contained an electoral "time bomb" and called upon Republican convention delegates to abstain from voting for Trump if he did not release the information.
During the presidential debates, Trump's opponent Hillary Clinton criticized Trump for not disclosing his tax returns, saying that only "a couple of years" of Trump's tax returns were publicly available, "and they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax." Trump responded: "That makes me smart." Clinton went on to suggest that Trump might not have "paid any federal income tax for a lot of years"; Trump responding by saying that the taxes he paid "would be squandered" by the government.
2016 election and later
Fragments of information about Trump's taxes leaked at multiple times around the time of his election as president. In 2016, The Washington Post reported a prior audit of Trump's tax returns for 2002 through 2008 by the Internal Revenue Service which was "closed administratively by agreement with the I.R.S. without assessment or payment, on a net basis, of any deficiency." The audit centered on a potential failure to report cancelled debts as income by Trump, and whether he performed a stock-for-debt swap. Some tax attorneys speculate that the government may ultimately have reduced what Trump was able to claim as a loss without requiring him to pay any additional taxes. It is unknown whether the IRS challenged Trump's use of the stock-for-debt swap, which is a maneuver with questionable legality. Congress had previously banned equity-for-debt swaps by corporations in 1993, and by partnerships such as Trump's in 2004.In separate leaks, parts of Trump's 1995 and 2005 returns were examined by multiple news organizations. In 2016, The New York Times examined three pages of his 1995 return and found that in that year, he declared a net operating loss of more than $500 million. Under section 172 of the Internal Revenue Code, this gave Trump a $915.7 million net loss. This loss was carried over to offset income for up to 18 years after it was originally claimed, and could have allowed him to pay no taxes at all for those years. In March 2017, journalist David Cay Johnston obtained the first two pages of Trump's 2005 federal income tax returns, which were given to Rachel Maddow and shown on MSNBC. These pages showed Trump's gross adjusted income to be $153 million, with $103 million in losses; he paid $38 million in federal taxes, including $31 million for the alternative minimum tax, which he was seeking to abolish. The White House described the losses as being from "large-scale depreciation for construction" and said the return had been "illegally published". Johnston said publishing the forms was legal because he had not been looking for them and "they might even have been sent by Mr. Trump himself". A team of New York Times journalists including Susanne Craig and David Barstow thought the income seemed inconsistent with any of Trump's known ventures from the time and suspected that it could be related to the 2004 sale of assets inherited from his father, Fred Trump. This sparked a larger investigation into the finances of Fred and Donald Trump.
As president, Trump continued to withhold his tax returns. In May 2017, Trump said he "might" release his tax returns only after he had stepped down as president. This was in spite of his previous commitment made during his campaign to release his tax returns once they were not under audit.
In 2018, the New York Times investigation into the finances of Fred and Donald Trump revealed that despite the claims of the latter to be a self-made billionaire, he had actually received more than $400 million from his father, most of it in ways that avoided paying gift or inheritance tax. The 13,000-word report was one of the longest investigative articles ever published by the Times.
On September 29, 2023, federal prosecutors announced they were charging someone with leaking the data from Trump's tax returns while he was a contractor for the IRS from 2018 to 2020. In October Charles E. Littlejohn pleaded guilty to unauthorized disclosure of tax returns and return information. On January 29, 2024, he received the maximum possible sentence of five years in federal prison and was fined $5,000.
As of October 13, 2024, Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance had not released their tax returns, while Kamala Harris released two decades of returns, including her most recent returns in April. The lack of visibility into the returns of Trump and Vance raised conflict of interest concerns among some Americans.
On January 29, 2026, Donald Trump, Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and the Trump Organization sued the IRS for $10 billion. The plaintiffs said that Littlejohn's leaks in 2018 and 2020 had caused them "reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputations, portrayed them in a false light, and negatively affected President Trump, and the other Plaintiffs' public standing."