House Ways and Means Committee votes to release Trump’s tax returns

Portions from six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns will be released by the Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee, which voted 24-16 on Tuesday to release the years of tax records Trump has has long tried to shield.

The vote was along party lines. 

After a yearslong legal battle, the Supreme Court cleared the way last month for the Treasury Department to send the returns to Congress. The committee received six years of tax returns for Trump and some of his businesses. Democrats are under pressure to act quickly, since only two weeks remain until Republicans take control of the House of Representatives. 

During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump portrayed himself as a smart businessman who paid nothing in federal taxes, but unlike most major presidential candidates, he refused to release his tax forms to the public. 

The only glimpse of his taxes came from reporting by the New York Times in 2018 articles  and 2020, which found, according to leaked tax records, that Trump had received the modern equivalent of at least $413 million from his father’s real estate holdings. The 2020 New York Times articles showed that Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2017 and 2018. Trump paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the past 15 years because he generally lost more money than he made.

Ellis Kim contributed to this report.