Six years of Donald Trump’s federal tax returns were released on Friday, revealing that the former president paid very little in federal income taxes during his first and last years in office, claiming huge losses that helped limit his tax bill, among other revelations.
The House Ways and Means Committee released the returns to the public on Friday, capping off a legal battle over their disclosure that reached the Supreme Court. They back up a Joint Committee on Taxation report that Trump claimed large losses prior to and during his presidency, which he carried forward to reduce or virtually eliminate his tax burden. His returns, for example, show that he carried forward a $105 million loss in 2015 and a $73 million loss in 2016.
Thousands of pages of documents from the former president’s personal and business federal tax returns spanning the years 2015 to 2020 provide a complex web of raw data about Trump’s finances, raising many questions about his wealth and income that auditors and Trump’s political opponents could pursue.