(FiveNation.com)- A summary of Trump’s tax returns released by the House Ways and Means Committee shows that the former president and his wife, First Lady Melania Trump, paid just over $1.1 million in federal income tax throughout his presidency.
Trump hasn’t yet made public his complete tax returns, but the Democratic-controlled committee has published a report and some documents that provide information on the former president’s earnings and taxes paid.
According to the documents, the Trumps jointly reported having millions of dollars in income from capital gains, dividends, and interest for each of the six years from 2015 to 2020.
However, losses more than offset that for most of the time in question, with the Trumps reporting a loss in four of the six years.
The losses lessened the Trumps’ tax liabilities, but they still owed $4.4 million in federal taxes over six years. This was reduced to a “net tax” of $1.8 million after tax credits were applied and items like self-employment taxes were excluded.
Along partisan lines, the committee also decided to make public all six years’ worth of Trump’s tax returns, which should happen within a few days.
Trump’s multi-year struggle to keep the secret of the return will come to an end with the final disclosure of the filings.
Tax returns don’t teach you much, but releasing them if they belong to someone else is against the law! Trump recently posted a piece to Truth Social.
Republicans contend that disclosing Trump’s tax returns would set a dangerous precedent, making the issue of whether to do so contentiously.
Trump’s tax returns should not be released, according to Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee and the top Republican. Brady made the case that the information in such disclosures could be used against him politically.
Brady said just before the committee entered a closed session for a vote, “It’s the power to embarrass, harass, or destroy Americans through disclosure of their tax returns.”
“The political enemies list is back in Washington, D.C., almost fifty years later, and we fear this will spark a cycle of political retaliation in Congress.”
The release of Trump’s tax returns resulted from an “unprecedented leak by lame-duck Democrats.”
Federal law states that tax returns must be kept private, but there are some exceptions, such as written requests from the House Ways and Means Committee, which claimed to have requested Trump’s returns as part of its investigation into how the IRS audits American presidents.
The committee obtained Trump’s tax returns in November after the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to keep up its opposition to withholding the records from the IRS.
