How Trump’s Tax Returns Could Become Public

Though candidates for the U.S. presidency aren’t required by law to show voters their tax returns, they almost always do so as a gesture of transparency. Donald Trump is a rare exception. During his campaign, and in more than three years as president, he has declined to make public his tax documents. Opposition Democrats, who took control of the U.S. House of Representatives in January 2019, want to use their power to get them. The U.S. Supreme Court is next to weigh in.

His most consistent explanation has been that, at the advice of his lawyers, he won’t do so while they are being audited by the Internal Revenue Service -- and he says he has been audited constantly since 2004. On other occasions, he’s also said that there’s “nothing to learn from” his returns, that they are “extremely complex” so people “wouldn’t understand them,” and that Americans who aren’t reporters don’t “care at all” about what’s in them. No law prevents him from releasing returns being audited by the IRS.