Democrats in Congress released thousands of pages of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns on Friday, providing the most detailed picture to date of his finances over a six-year period, including his time in the White House, when he fought to keep the information private in a break with decades of precedent.
The documents include individual returns from Trump and his wife, Melania, along with Trump’s business entities. They show how Trump used the tax code to lower his tax obligations and they reveal details about foreign accounts and the performance of some of his highest-profile business ventures.
The disclosure marks the culmination of a yearslong legal fight that has played out everywhere from the presidential campaign to Congress and the Supreme Court as Trump persistently rejected efforts to share details about his financial history — counter to the practice of transparency followed by all his predecessors in the post-Watergate era. The records release comes just days before Republicans retake control of the House and weeks after Trump announced another bid for the presidency.
Trump reported having bank accounts in China, Ireland and the United Kingdom in 2015 through 2017, according to the filings. Starting in 2018, however, he only reported an account in the U.K. The returns also show that Trump claimed foreign tax credits for taxes he paid on various business ventures around the world, including licensing arrangements for use of his name on development projects and his golf courses in Scotland and Ireland.
Trump paid $641,931 in federal income taxes in 2015, the year he began his campaign for president, according to a report released last week by Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. He paid $750 in 2016 and 2017, nearly $1 million in 2018, $133,445 in 2019 and nothing in 2020, the year he unsuccessfully sought reelection.