Ex-President Trump Under Pressure Over Tax Returns

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

WASHINGTON (Worthy News) – Former U.S. President Donald Trump faced more hurdles on his attempted path to re-election Saturday after Democrats in Congress released thousands of pages of what they view as controversial tax returns.

Trump’s most detailed picture to date of his finances over six years, including in the White House, showed how he used the tax code to lower his tax obligation, critics said.

The documents reveal details about foreign accounts, charitable contributions, and the performance of some of his highest-profile business ventures, which had remained mainly shielded from public scrutiny.

Supporters of the investigation said the disclosure marks the culmination of a yearslong legal fight that played out everywhere from the presidential campaign to Congress and the Supreme Court.

Trump has persistently rejected efforts to share details about his financial history, saying it was a politically motivated witch-hunt.

Democrats said his behavior contradicts the practice of transparency followed by all his predecessors in the post-Watergate era.

The records’ release comes just days before Republicans retake the House and weeks after Trump announced another campaign for the White House.

INDIVIDUAL RETURNS

The documents include individual returns from Trump and his wife, Melania, along with Trump’s business entities from 2015-2020.

While Trump paid $641,931 in federal income taxes in 2015, the year he began his campaign for president, he paid just $750 in 2016 and 2017, according to a report released last week by Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation.

He paid nearly $1 million in 2018 but only $133,445 in 2019 and nothing in 2020, the year he unsuccessfully sought reelection.

The records also detail Trump’s foreign holdings.

Trump, the files claimed, reported having bank accounts in China, Ireland, and the United Kingdom from 2015 through 2017, even as he was commander in chief.

Starting in 2018, however, he only reported an account in the U.K. The returns also show that Trump claimed foreign tax credits for taxes he paid on various business ventures worldwide. Those included licensing arrangements for using his name on development projects and his golf courses in Scotland and Ireland.

Democrats have accessed him of paying little or no taxes over the last decades. But Trump has denied suggestions that he wasn’t as good a businessman as he claimed or committed fraud.

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