Trump's tax returns finally released to the public

On Friday morning, the House Ways and Means Committee placed former President Donald Trump's tax returns into the congressional record during a pro forma session (PDF download), officially releasing the information to the public.

The returns cover years 2015 through 2020, which includes his years in office and his first presidential campaign.

The move comes after an intense, years-long series of legal battles Trump waged against House investigators to prevent them from obtaining the returns. That battle finally ended earlier this month, when the Supreme Court cleared the way for the returns to be transmitted to the Ways and Means Committee.

Every president since the Richard Nixon administration, and virtually every presidential candidate, has released their tax returns to the public voluntarily. Trump originally promised as a candidate to release his returns after an "audit" was completed, but ultimately went back on his promise and refused. It subsequently came out that the IRS never actually audited him the way they are supposed to for every president.

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Experts have long speculated that the returns could potentially answer several questions about the former president, including whether his wealth really is what he claims it to be, and whether he has used various accounting tricks and business losses to avoid paying the amount he should.

These suspicions were partially confirmed by a New York Timesinvestigation in 2020 that obtained two decades of Trump's returns from before he became president.