Former US President Donald Trump has to release parts of his tax documents.
A US Congressional committee on Tuesday voted to release ex-President Donald Trump’s six-year tax returns. The House Tax Policy Committee voted 24 to 16 to release Trump’s 2015-2020 tax returns. This ends a year-long dispute with the former head of state over the release of the documents.
Democratic MP Lloyd Doggett told US broadcaster CNN that a summary report from the committee would be sent to the House of Representatives with tax returns. It could take a few days until then.
Trump was the first president since Richard Nixon (1969 to 1974) to refuse to disclose his tax returns. This led to speculation that the very rich real estate entrepreneur had something to hide.
In November, the US Supreme Court cleared the way for the release of Trump’s tax returns after a year-long legal battle. The tax authority IRS subsequently handed over the documents for the years 2015 to 2020 to the Tax Policy Committee (in English: Ways and Means Committee).
Actually, the tax returns are confidential. The committee, controlled by President Joe Biden’s Democrats, had argued that it needed the documents to understand how well tax authorities could scrutinize presidential finances. Trump, on the other hand, accuses MPs of pursuing purely political goals.
Voting to publish the documents is one of the last official acts of the committee in this composition. The new parliamentary year begins on January 3rd. In the future Congress, the Republicans will have a majority in the House of Representatives – and thus also control the committee responsible for tax policy.
