Many Unhappy Trump Returns - WSJ editorial

[question everything]

Donald Trump promised in 2016 that he’d release his tax returns but he never has, and voters elected him anyway. Now Democrats are demanding that the IRS release six years of Mr. Trump’s returns to them, triggering a political and legal fight that voters will ultimately have to judge.

As in so much else, Mr. Trump is the exception to modern Presidents in refusing to make his returns public. In 2015 he suggested that he’d release them eventually, telling ABC News in October that “at some point I’ll release it.” In February 2016 he told CBS’s John Dickerson that he’d release them “I would say, over the next three, four months. We’re working on them very hard. And they will be very good.”

We’ve long thought this is information voters ought to have. One argument for tax transparency are Bill and Hillary Clinton, who while running in 1992 released their returns going back to 1980. The same standard should hold for Mr. Trump, who in early 2016 began floating the excuse that he can’t release his returns while they are being audited. This must be some audit because he’s still using that line. It’s unlikely that he’s covering up some illegality if he’s been audited as persistently as he claims.

More likely, Mr. Trump wants to block the disclosure of politically embarrassing details. Perhaps he doesn’t make as much money as he wants people to believe. Perhaps he pays relatively little in taxes given real-estate depreciation and other loopholes. Perhaps he donates little to charity.. The upshot is another political standoff that will probably end up in court for months or years. If Mr. Trump prevails, Democrats will argue that he must be hiding something. Voters in 2020 will have to judge how much they value tax-return transparency for a sitting President among the myriad other issues of character and policy they have to consider.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/many-unhappy-trump-returns-11554667487 (paid subscription)

[SWBTATTReg]

1. First of all, this is among the many lies told by this so called president...if he's not going to...

show his returns, then don't and say so. Don't come up with lie after lie after lie 'oh, I'm being audited' etc.'. The excuses are flimsy and idiotic, but what can you expect from such a person who has proven to all what an idiot and buffoon that he truly is. If you're being audited, then you're being audited for taking deductions you shouldn't have, and obviously in this case (if true), he's riddled his tax returns with tons of deductions he shouldn't have.

Although tax returns only offer a temporary snapshot into one's yearly affairs, and are not a 'see all, tell all' type of thing, they do reveal some information. As this post states very well...

-makes far less money than he's claimed;
-pays far less in taxes than one of his supposed wealth pays in comparison to others;
-uses loopholes that he's shouldn't have;
-uses other blatant tax avoidance schemes that are totally illegal;
-donates basically nothing to charity;
-etc.

He ran casinos in New Jersey, why not grab some of the old information there? Also, NY has some stuff, grab that stuff too. If I recall, he had some pretty big problems with some of the stuff in NJ, such as money laundering, etc.