Donald Trump Won’t Release Taxes
Politics –
Taxes ‘None Of Your Business’ Says Trump
Surprise…Donald Trump has reneged on a promise. Despite vowing to eventually release his tax returns publicly, “The Donald” now says it’s a no-go and that everyone should mind their own business.
Politics
“It’s none of your business, Trump told Good Morning America host George Stephanopoulos when asked his tax rate. “There’s nothing to learn from them [the tax returns]” he added, explaining that he did not think voters were particularly interested in the contents of his returns.
Technically, Trump is correct. The release of tax returns is not legally required of presidential candidates. However, there is a long tradition of major party nominees releasing their returns so the public can see if they are paying their fair share of taxes for their income level, or if they’re scamming the government they wish to lead. If Trump continues his refusal, he would be the first major candidate since 1976 (President Gerald Ford only released a tax summary that year) to not make any of his full returns public.
Throughout his primary battle, Trump promised 1.) he would eventually release his tax information and blamed the delay on the complexity of his finances. He then said 2.) he could not do it immediately because he is being audited by the Internal Revenue Service and that his lawyers advised him against it. Later, Trump claimed 3.) he couldn’t release returns from previous years because the government audits him almost every year. Can anyone spell E-X-C-U-S-E-S?
Trump’s claim that he could not release his returns while he was involved in a current audit was discredited by a government official who would certainly know better.
IRS Chief John Koskinen explained in an interview with C-SPAN, “The taxpayer controls his returns. There’s nothing in an IRS audit process generally that would keep you from sharing that information generally, any way you wanted to.”
Koskinen also added that “It would be rare for someone to be audited every year,” and that someone would not undergo another audit for a few years, “two or three at least,” after IRS audit the previous year.
“It would be rare,” Koskinen made clear.
Among those calling for Trump to immediately release his returns is Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee who did not want to release his own tax returns but finally relented under pressure. Interestingly, it was Donald Trump who pressed Romney to release his returns that year, saying he should be proud of his wealth and not hold back his financial information.
“Mitt has to get those tax returns out,” Mr. Trump said in a Fox News interview at the time. “I’m a little surprised they weren’t better prepared for that.”
Now it looks like the shoe is on the other foot.
When Stephanopoulos asked Trump his tax rate, he answered, “It’s none of your business. You’ll see it when I release, but I fight very hard to pay as little tax as possible.”
Therein lies the answer.
In a burst of temper, Trump’s decision not to answer actually answered the question. It’s apparent the secretive Donald Trump isn’t paying his fair share of taxes. How little Trump actually pays could be a major campaign issue. Obviously, the presumptive GOP nominee is attempting to hide the information from voters because he knows it will come back to bite him and cost him votes in November.
Although Donald Trump lies every day, this lie could be the deal breaker. The likely Republican nominee is hiding information that voters need to know to make an informed evaluation of his candidacy for president. And that damning information could be the final nail in his political coffin.
Trump is such a big hipacrit. I can't believe so many people fall for his bull. He is definitely hiding something.