In 2019, the House Ways and Means Committee issued subpoenas for President Trump’s tax returns for the previous 6 years to be made public. The Democrats’ battle to make Trump’s finances public has been raging ever since. On Friday, after years of unsuccessfully obtaining these records, the committee released a partially redacted version of Trump’s tax returns.
The financial documents were made public after the committee voted 24 to 16 to release Trump’s tax returns.
The documents comprise six years of Trump’s individual returns which he filed jointly with Melania, as well as tax forms from Trump’s various business entities that were also under investigation by Ways and Means Democrats.
In total, about 6,000 pages of material were released, including 2,700 pages of individual returns and over 3,000 pages from Trump’s businesses.
After the information was made public, Trump released a statement on the matter, saying, “The Democrats should have never done it, the Supreme Court should have never approved it, and it’s going to lead to horrible things for so many people. The great USA divide will now grow far worse.”
“The Radical Left Democrats have weaponized everything, but remember, that is a dangerous two-way street!” Trump continued. “The ‘Trump’ tax returns once again show how proudly successful I have been and how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive for creating thousands of jobs and magnificent structures and enterprises.”
After reviewing the documents, Richard Neal (D., Mass.) mostly blamed the IRS for not auditing Trump enough while he was president.
Many people bashed the Democrats for making such a big deal over Trump’s tax returns for multiple years, just to find out that there was nothing particularly interesting to note.
National Review journalist Ryan Ellis, an IRS enrolled agent, reported that “today’s Trump tax return dump was a lot of buildup for not a lot of interesting output.”
Ellis summarized his review of the financial documents, saying,
“We have a man who has spent a career obsessively creating dozens of businesses, probably hundreds over his lifetime. Many of these have lost money, which of course cancels out those that have made a profit. When it all nets out, the ultimate owner pays all the tax legally owed. Should he pay more? Only if you believe someone should not be able to let his business losses offset his business profits, which is grossly unfair. If the business losses were fraudulent for some reason, that’s not clear from these tax returns — each LLC would have to be separately audited and its books examined.”
Conservative talk show host Addison Smith tweeted about the lackluster outcome of the long-awaited financial documents. Smith wrote, “After years of Dems foaming at the mouth over Trump’s tax returns, they’re here. And there’s nothing. Again. As predictable as a Hallmark Christmas movie.”
After years of Dems foaming at the mouth over Trump’s tax returns, they’re here. And there’s nothing. Again.
As predictable as a Hallmark Christmas movie. https://t.co/AC3eK7zB9i
— Addison Smith (@AddisonSmithTV) December 30, 2022
Another Twitter user mocked the democrats for how hard they worked for very little return, saying, “The democrats spent years fighting for President Donald Trump’s returns and they are the biggest nothing burger ever.”
The decision to release Trump’s tax returns has also garnered significant backlash from Republicans who claim that this release will set a dangerous precedent for privacy protections of public figures.
Rep. Kevin Brady (R., Texas) expressed his anger at the release of Trump’s documents, saying, “Democrats have charged forward with an unprecedented decision to unleash a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond the former president, overturning decades of privacy protections for average Americans that have existed since Watergate.”
“Going forward, all future Chairs of both the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee will have nearly unlimited power to target and make public the tax returns of private citizens, political enemies, business and labor leaders, or even the Supreme Court justices themselves,” warned Brady.
Trump IRS Form 1040 2017-1 by Paul Conner
