Trump’s tax returns released, launching fresh scrutiny of his finances

House Democrats released several years’ worth of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns on Friday, launching what is sure to be another round of intense scrutiny of his finances.

The drop marks an extraordinary step by the House’s top tax writer, Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal (D-Mass.), who had been engaged in a three-and-a-half-year legal battle over the release of Trump’s taxes until the Supreme Court ruled in his favor in November. It also adds to a growing list of political and legal challenges for Trump as he mounts his 2024 campaign for president.

Democrats say their investigation of Trump's taxes and a mandatory presidential audit program will transform accountability for the most powerful person in the country. Neal sued the Treasury Department in 2019 to obtain the returns under a law that allows the heads of Congress’ tax committees to access anyone’s tax information, after Trump broke decades of tradition by refusing to voluntarily release them as other presidential candidates and sitting presidents have.

Republicans denounced the move as a political hit job that will open a Pandora's box.

Six years of Trump's returns will now be available to tax experts and non-experts, a development that Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen said the former president feared would result result in the government levying additional taxes and penalties.

A preliminary analysis of Trump’s taxes by Congress’ brain trust on tax issues, the Joint Committee on Taxation, found that the former president paid little to no taxes for several years by claiming mammoth business losses. Trump paid $750 in 2016 and 2017 and paid nothing in 2020, JCT said.

Among the items outlined by JCT are several red flags that could change the amount of taxes Trump ends up owing once the IRS completes ongoing audits.

Despite the release of the returns, significant questions may still go unanswered, Steve Rosenthal of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center said.

Huge losses that Trump claimed to lower his taxes seemingly originate in earlier tax years and still have not been cleared by the IRS, making it difficult to assess their legitimacy, Rosenthal said.

Trump carried forward $105 million in losses to 2015 and brought $73 million in losses to 2016, but those likely stem from the stunning $700 million loss that The New York Times has reported Trump claimed on his 2009 return, among other potential losses, Rosenthal said.

The “elephant in the room” is those earlier returns that were not ultimately subject to the Ways and Means scrutiny.

“That’s critical, but the committee failed to ask for it,” Rosenthal said.

According to a Ways and Means report released last week, the IRS was severely outgunned in its efforts to audit Trump, whose returns weren't audited during his first two years in office despite an IRS policy of examining the taxes of sitting presidents.

A single agent at the IRS was responsible for examining Trump’s voluminous returns and was pitted against partners at a global law firm and a former IRS chief counsel. Trump’s representatives protested when it was suggested that the IRS bring in two more auditors to help handle the sizable paperwork.

Republicans, who will take over the House on Jan. 3, say the decision to release Trump's taxes will open a new front in political warfare in which no one's tax information — from that of Supreme Court justices to business and union leaders — will be immune from disclosure.