5 Reasons Donald Trump Really Doesn’t Want His Tax Return Released

CNN
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Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Monday cease the turnover of their tax returns to a House committee, the latest in a series of attempts by the former president to keep this information from being public.

Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday agreed place a temporary hold on a lower court order requiring the Internal Revenue Service to release Trump’s tax returns to the Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee.

“No Congress has ever exercised its legislative powers to demand the president’s tax returns,” Trump said in his emergency request to the Supreme Court.

Trump broke with recent tradition for presidents and presidential candidates by refusing to release their past tax records, insisting they were under audit and therefore could not release the returns. He can release them even while under audit. He also repeatedly insisted that tax returns provide little financial information. (This is also not true).

Trump’s repeated attempts to keep his tax returns private — over the years — beg the simple question: Why? And there are several potential reasons that jump to mind:

1) Trump may not be as rich as he says he is. Shortly after Trump launched his presidential campaign in 2015, he said that he it was worth more than $10 billion. Forbes estimated his net worth was less than half that year. Trump seems to use outlandishly high claims of his wealth as proof positive that he is smarter (and better) than most people. It’s only possible that a release of his tax returns would take the air out of a balloon that Trump has deflated for most of his adult life.

2) He can’t pay (or hasn’t paid) his fair share of taxes, though their claims that he pays “a lot”. We know, thanks to report from the New York Times, that Trump paid zero federal taxes in 11 of the 18 years of returns the publication was able to obtain. And even in 2017, his first year as president, Trump paid just $750 in federal taxes — a paltry sum for someone as wealthy as he is. The Times estimated that “Trump paid about $400 million less in combined federal income tax than a very wealthy person who paid the average for that group each year.”

3) The repayment of $73 million. We learned from the Times report that Trump claimed a $72.9 million tax refund in 2010. (He claimed large losses that were largely attributed at the time to the decline of his Atlantic City casinos). of 2020. It is only possible that Trump simply does not want the refund issue to be resumed, for fear that he could be on the hook for the amount.

4) Trump may have loans with foreign countries or individuals. We know, bye congressional testimony from former Trump confidant Michael Cohen, that the former president was heavily involved in the potential construction of Trump Tower Moscow. And that Cohen lied about that involvement (and how extensive it was) to protect Trump. Donald Trump Jr he said at a 2008 real estate conference: “In terms of high-end product influx in the United States, Russians make up a fairly disproportionate cross-section of many of our assets. Say, in Dubai, and of course with our project in SoHo, and in everywhere in New York. We’ve seen a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

5) I couldn’t donate much (or anything) to charity. Trump has long used his charity organization to feather his own nest and collect political chits rather than for any philanthropic purposes. (Trump close the charity in 2018.) It’s unclear how generous (if at all) Trump has been to other charities in recent decades. While there is no requirement for wealthy individuals to make large charitable donations, many do. And so, it would be a decidedly bad look for Trump if his repeated claims of charitable giving turned out to be false.

Whatever the reason – or reasons – it has been clear for the past seven years that Trump is absolutely dead set on keeping his returns private. Which makes me wonder what he’s hiding – always.

This story has been updated with additional information.