The Democratic-controlled House committee studying the case releases the documents before Republicans take control of the House
The US House of Representatives will publish this Friday the federal income statements of the former president Donald Trump in a farewell gesture to his majority of the lower house of the US Congress that the Republican opposition, which will pick up the baton in the coming days, has described as a “dangerous political precedent”.
Although the diary The New York Times released decades of tax information on Trump in 2020the New York tycoon always refused to make his income statements public, putting an end to a “tradition” started during Jimmy Carter’s tenure.
Now, and with the approval of the conservative US Supreme Court, which approved the procedure by six votes in favor to three against, the Ways and Means Committee of the US House of Representatives is preparing to officially publish some documents after denounce that Donald Trump only submitted once throughout his entire term to the audit mandatory annual presidential election, CNN reports.
Experts consulted by ‘The Hill’ have indicated that it will take time to break down all the information (this is five fiscal years, from 2015 to 2020), and they do not anticipate exceptional disclosures, but they could provide additional information on key areas of interest regarding Trump’s businesses and his professional associations.
The top Republican figure within the commission, Congressman Kevin Brady, has regretted the publication of these documents as a “dangerous new political weapon that goes far beyond former president and removes decades of privacy protection from the average American.”
In fact, Trump himself, already in the middle of the pre-campaign with his eyes set on the 2024 elections, has described the decision as a “shocking abuse of power” and a “crazy witch hunt”before urging incumbent Joe Biden and what he described as the “Washington cartel” to go public with their own statements, something the incumbent has been doing voluntarily since 1998.
According to the documents published so far, Trump paid a million (all figures in euros) in federal income taxes in 2018 and 2019in stark contrast to the 700 euros he paid in 2017. In 2020 he paid no tax, according to a report by the Joint Fiscal Committee.
Trump reported a capital gain of 20 million in 2018 and a gain of 8.5 million in 2019 thanks to the sale of assets that interrupted years of losses: 30 million in the red in 2015 and 2016, and 12 in 2017. In 2020 , when the pandemic hit, Trump declared 4.5 million in losses. He did not pay taxes that year.