Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Monday to stop the release of his tax returns to a House committee, the latest in a series of attempts by the former president to keep that information out of the public eye.
Chief Justice John Roberts agreed on Tuesday to temporarily stay a lower court’s ruling requiring the Internal Revenue Service to release Trump’s tax returns to the Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee.
“No Congress has ever exercised its legislative powers to require a president’s tax returns,” Trump said in his emergency request to the Supreme Court.
Trump broke with recent tradition for presidents and presidential candidates by refusing to release his past tax records, insisting they were under audit and therefore could not release the returns. He can release them even when they are under control. He has also repeatedly insisted that tax returns provide little financial information. (This is also not true.)
Trump’s repeated attempts to keep his tax returns private – over the years – begs the simple question: Why? And there are several possible reasons that come to mind:
1) Trump may not be as rich as he says he is. Not long after Trump began his campaign in 2015, he said he was worth more than $10 billion. Forbes estimated his net worth to be less than half that year. Trump seems to use outrageously high claims to his wealth as proof that he is smarter (and better) than most people. It is uniquely possible that the release of his tax returns will take the air out of a balloon that Trump has been blowing up for much of his adult life.
2) He may not pay (or hasn’t paid) his fair share of taxes, despite his claims that he pays “a lot.” We know, thanks to reporting by the New York Times, that Trump paid zero federal taxes in 11 of the 18 years of returns the publication was able to obtain. And even in 2017, his first year as president, Trump paid just $750 in federal taxes — a pittance for someone as wealthy as he is. The Times estimated that “Trump has paid about $400 million less in combined federal income taxes than a very wealthy individual paid the average for that group each year.”
3) The return of the $73 million. We learned from the Times report that Trump filed for a $72.9 million tax refund in 2010. (He claimed large losses that were widely attributed at the time to the decline of his Atlantic City casinos.) The IRS began its audit of refund in 2011, which was still pending as of 2020. It’s uniquely possible that Trump just doesn’t want to bring up the refund issue again, fearing he might be on the hook for the amount.
4) Trump may have loans with foreign countries or individuals. We know, through congressional testimony from former Trump confidant Michael Cohen, that the former president was deeply involved in the potential construction of Trump Tower in Moscow. And that Cohen lied about that involvement (and how long it lasted) to protect Trump. Donald Trump Jr. was quoted as saying at a real estate conference in 2008: “When it comes to high-tech inflows into the US, the Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. Let’s say, in Dubai, and certainly with our project in SoHo, and anywhere in New York. We see a lot of money coming out of Russia.”
5) May not donate much (or anything) to charity. Trump has long used his charity to build his own nest egg and collect political chips rather than for charitable purposes. (Trump closed the charity in 2018.) It’s not at all clear how generous (if at all) Trump has been to other charities in recent decades. Although wealthy individuals are not required to make large charitable donations, many do. And so, it would undoubtedly look bad for Trump if it appeared that his repeated claims of charitable donations were false.
Whatever the reason — or reasons — it’s been clear for the past seven years that Trump is dead set on keeping his returns private. Which makes me wonder what he’s hiding – still.
This story has been updated with additional information.
