US Congress votes to release Trump's tax returns

Washington: Donald Trump's tax returns will now be made public after US lawmakers voted to release them on Tuesday. The former president had fought for years to keep the documents secret as his murky financial past has continued to stir up controversy.

The Republican leader, who may run for president again after losing the 2020 election, broke presidential custom by withholding the records, setting off feverish speculations about what they would uncover.

In one of its final acts, before the keys are turned over to the Republicans in January, the Democratic-led House Ways and Means Committee unanimously agreed to reveal six years' worth of the billionaire's files on a party-line vote of 24-16.

Democratic congressman Lloyd Doggett told CNN that the US Congress Joint Committee on Taxation's analysis and the raw returns would be submitted in a summary report to the entire House of Representatives.

“That may be delayed for a few days, only to permit time for redacting things like social security numbers... that kind of thing,” he said.

After a protracted legal battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court, committee chairman Richard Neal was able to win access to the records, which covered the years 2015 to 20, and that is when the vote took place.

“This was not about being punitive, it was not about being malicious — and there were no leaks from the committee,” he said after the vote.

The returns, which were covered by privacy regulations that made it a crime for anybody to leak information, were only made available to a limited, exclusive group of lawmakers.

However, the law permits legislators who are in charge of taxation to review the returns of any American taxpayer.

Trump's financial situation has always piqued the interest of the US public, in part because of the lengths he has taken to keep it secret and in part because of the opulent lifestyle he had before becoming president as a real estate entrepreneur.

His charitable contributions, any conflicts of interest, and the impact of the pandemic and his presidency on his enterprises could all be revealed in the returns.

In a case described as being "about greed and cheating" by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Trump's family firm was found guilty of tax fraud earlier this month, AFP reported.

Trump was not charged, but the corporation and another Trump family entity were found guilty of operating a 13-year scheme to defraud and evade taxes by falsifying business documents.

In 2020, The New York Times published a financial probe of Trump, stating that during the years prior to his election, he had paid little to no federal income tax.

Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, claimed that the allegation demonstrated "Trump's disdain for America's working families." Democrats seized on the charge.

The claims were promptly rejected by Trump as "totally fake news."

Before the vote on Tuesday, the Ways and Means Committee Republicans had expressed concern that making the records public could set a precedent that would undermine Americans' right to privacy and allow for unjustified probes of political rivals.

“Democrats will open the door for partisans in Congress to have nearly unlimited power to target political enemies by obtaining and making public their private tax returns,” the panel’s top Republican Kevin Brady said in a statement.

Republicans claim that the Democrats' stated reason for looking at the returns, to help with a review of how the Internal Revenue Service audits presidents, is disingenuous.

“While Democrats insist it’s not political, their rush to release the returns through a hurried, botched process signifies that their motivations are indeed politicized,” they said in a statement.

Except for Gerald Ford, who only provided a summary of his tax returns, every president from Richard Nixon to Trump's predecessor Barack Obama submitted their complete tax returns to the public.