President Trump

As a presidential candidate in 2016, Trump broke decades of precedent by refusing to release his tax forms to the public.

Trump sued the Times and his niece, Mary Trump, in 2021 for providing the records to the newspaper. Those allegations are the subject of a fraud lawsuit that New York attorney general Letitia James filed against Trump and his company in September. As a presidential candidate in 2016, Trump broke decades of precedent by refusing to release his tax forms to the public. The image of a savvy businessman was key to a political brand honed during his years as a tabloid magnet and star of The Apprentice television show. The committee received six years of tax returns for Trump and some of his businesses. Trump paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the past 15 years because he generally lost more money than he made.

The amount of income, deductions and taxes paid by former President Donald Trump as disclosed in his annual federal tax returns while serving in the White ...

- The 2020 return shows negative income of $4.69 million, with zero dollars in taxable income. The Trumps paid $999,466 in federal income taxes. The Trumps paid $750 in taxes. They paid $133,445 in taxes. The couple paid federal income taxes of $641,931. - The 2018 return declared total income of $24.4 million, with taxable income of $22.9 million. - In 2019, the Trumps declared $4.44 million in total income, and $2.97 million in taxable income. - The 2016 return declared negative income of $31.2 million, with zero dollars of taxable income. - The 2017 return declared negative income $12.8 million, with $0 in taxable income. - On their 2015 federal return, Trump and his wife declared negative income of $31.7 million, with taxable income of $0. On their 2020 income tax returns, Trump and his wife Melania paid no federal income taxes and claimed a refund of $5.47 million, according to the report by the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation. - The report by the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation was posted online shortly after the House Ways and Means Committee voted to make public redacted versions of Trump's full income tax returns, and those of eight related business entities for the tax years 2015 through 2020.

The Democrat-led panel voted in a closed session to release six years of records pertaining to the former president.

Neither that case, nor Vance’s investigation, resulted in the publication of Trump’s tax records. Trump himself was not charged in the case. “This rises above politics, and the Committee will now conduct the oversight that we’ve sought for the last three and a half years.” But lower courts sided with the committee, asserting that it had broad authority to obtain tax documents. There was no suggestion that Trump sought to directly influence the IRS or discourage the agency from reviewing his tax information. And Trump had previously claimed he could not disclose the documents, as he was under an IRS audit.