DONALD TRUMP TAXES
Tax specialists see no legitimate reason for Mr. Trump to hold back. โWhen you file your return with the I.R.S. or any taxation authority you are filing your returns under penalty of perjury that what you are filing is true and correct,โ said Laurie B. Kazenoff, a former I.R.S. tax lawyer now with the firm Meltzer Lippe. โYou should be standing by what you filed regardless of any audit.โ
Mr. Trump has given different explanations for why he will not release his taxes over the years. In 2011, when he contemplated running for president, Mr. Trump said he would release his tax returns when President Obama released his birth certificate. Mr. Obama made the birth certificate public in April 2011, and Mr. Trump announced a few weeks later that he would not run for president.
THEN
Donald Trump said that Mitt Romney lost the presidential race in 2012 because of his tax returns.
"He waited 'til September to give 'em, just before the election. They made him look so bad. It was so unfair," Trump said of the GOP's 2012 presidential nominee on ABC's "This Week."
"I actually think he didn't lose because of the 47 percent. I think he lost because of a couple of really minor items in a tax return, where he did nothing wrong. ... It is unfair."
NOW
Donald J. Trump said that he does not believe voters have a right to see his tax returns, and he insisted it was โnone of your businessโ when pressed on what tax rate he pays. Mr. Trump was adamant in his interview on Friday that โpeople will learn nothingโ from his returns.
ANALYSIS
While his tax returns would not show Mr. Trumpโs net worth, they would show investment income and where those investments are held, liens and the scope and type of his charitable contributions.
Kenneth A. Gross, a lawyer with Skadden who deals regularly with tax issues, suggested that the contents of Mr. Trumpโs tax returns were certainly of public interest because they would provide insight into his finances that his previously disclosed financial documents do not.
Donald Trump must be so scared to release his taxes that he rather take the hit with voters for not releasing them. Must be some pretty bad stuff in those taxes.