The release of former President Donald Trump's tax returns puts an end to a contentious six-year campaign to learn more about his financial situation.
The results encompass Mr. Trump's presidential
campaign and term in office from 2015 to 2020.
They include information on the numerous organizations,
such as holding corporations and individual income, through which he would have
paid taxes.
Examining the documents is the BBC.
The Trump camp responded to Friday's publication of
hundreds of pages of tax returns by warning that the disclosure will result in
a "far worsening" of the political rift in the US.
According to his comments, "The Democrats should
never have done it, the Supreme Court should never have allowed it, and it's
going to result in dreadful things for so many people."
Ever since he entered politics, Mr. Trump's detractors
have been eager to force him to demonstrate the true extent of his riches. This
is because his primary selling point to voters was that his economic success
made him the ideal candidate to lead the nation.
He had adamantly objected.
Democrats who oversee the release and are in charge of
the House of Representatives said that it was an essential act of oversight.
Donald Trump "abused the authority of his
position to obstruct fundamental disclosure on his finances and conflicts of
interest, something no president since Nixon has forsaken," said
Representative Don Beyer, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee that
published the records, on Friday.
The committee also discovered that the US government
agency in charge of tax collection, the Internal Revenue Service, neglected to
audit Mr. Trump during his first two years in office and only started doing so
in 2019 after congressional oversight procedures were initiated.
Here is what it took to reach the disclosed
information.
Trump rejects convention
In the aim of openness and accountability, candidates
for president and elected officials have revealed their tax returns to the
public for many years.
According to Steve Rosenthal, senior scholar at the
nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, the longtime custom is "primarily about
trying to convince the public that the president is working free of conflicts
and entanglements, and taxes are sort of the window into the financial soul of
someone."
However, Mr. Rosenthal claimed that Mr. Trump
"cracked all the conventions" when he refused to make his tax returns
public while running for president in 2016.
His adamant insistence on the subject stoked suspicion
among his detractors that he was hiding something. Could it be, they wondered,
that Mr. Trump was not as wealthy as he claimed to be or that he had paid less
tax than he should have?
Meanwhile, his supporters supported his right to
solitude. After all, it is not required by law for candidates to make their tax
returns public.
Investigations by the New York Times
However, the general public has progressively learned
more about Mr. Trump's personal tax history throughout his administration and
thereafter.
The New York Times investigation, which was published
in 2020, was based in large part on the acquisition of Mr. Trump's prior to
taking office, 20 years' worth of tax returns. The records provided previously
unheard-of insight into Mr. Trump's enterprises.
They showed that, despite his public boasts of
financial success, he paid little to no federal income taxes over that time
period and that, according to Mr. Trump's tax returns, his businesses suffered
large losses. Despite being a billionaire, Trump only paid $750 (£623) in
federal income tax in 2017, according to The Times.
According to Mr. Rosenthal, the New York Times article
"raises the question of whether he is a billionaire or if there is some
legal or illegal method, he employs to avoid paying taxes."
Going to the Supreme Court to fight the battle
As soon as Democrats took control of the House of
Representatives in early 2019, they started using their authority to oversee
Mr. Trump in Washington.
For three years, the Ways and Means Committee sought
to get access to Mr. Trump's tax records.
This year's battle reached the US Supreme Court, where
in November the justices decided not to intervene and clear the way for the
release of Mr. Trump's tax returns to the committee.
On December 21, the committee decided with a 50-50
vote along partisan lines to make the tax returns they had collected available
to the public.