Fact Checker
Trump’s false claim that ‘there’s nothing to learn’ from his tax returns
By Glenn Kessler May 12 at 3:00 AM
washingtonpost.com
“There’s nothing to learn from them.”
— Donald Trump, explaining why he won’t release his tax returns, in an interview with the Associated Press on May 11, 2016
Donald Trump has a history of promising to release his tax returns — and then not doing so.
In 2011, when Trump was spearheading the movement questioning whether President Obama was born in the United States, Trump told ABC News that he would release his tax returns if Obama released his long-form birth certificate. “I’d love to give my tax returns,” he said.
But once Obama released his birth certificate, Trump hedged. “At the appropriate time I’m going to do it,” he said. The appropriate time never came.
Then, in 2012, Trump criticized Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney for being slow to release his tax returns. He was asked by Fox News if he’d ever have a problem releasing his returns.
“No,” Trump said. “I actually think that it’s a great thing when you can show that you’ve been successful, and that you’ve made a lot of money, that you’ve employed a lot of people. I actually think that it’s a positive.”
But apparently, that was then. Trump now says he won’t release his taxes, citing a pending audit — not even back taxes from 2002 to 2008 that his lawyers claim have been cleared without penalty. Never mind that the first president to release his taxes, Richard Nixon, did so in in the midst of an audit. (Nixon ended up owing about $500,000, the equivalent of about $2.5 million today.)
Trump himself also provided tax returns from 2000 to 2004 — while they were under audit by the Internal Revenue Service — to state gambling officials in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, as part of the process of seeking casino licenses in those states, CNN reported.
After Trump’s remarks to the AP, Romney posted on Facebook that “it is disqualifying for a modern-day presidential nominee to refuse to release tax returns to the voters, especially one who has not been subject to public scrutiny in either military or public service.”
Joseph J. Thorndike, director of the Tax History Project, says that Trump would be the first presidential candidate in 40 years not to release his tax return. Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton has released all of her tax returns for the past 33 years; Sen. Bernie Sanders has released his 2014 tax return, with some attachments missing.
Trump told the AP “that he wouldn’t overrule his lawyers and instruct them to release his returns if the audit hasn’t concluded by November.” But after Romney’s post on Facebook appeared, Trump tweeted that he “would release my tax returns when the audit is complete, not after election.”
We’re not holding our breath. For the purpose of this fact check, we will examine Trump’s claim that there is “nothing” to learn from his tax returns. Is that really the case?
The Facts
Trump in 2015 filed a financial disclosure form required of presidential candidates. The 92-page document did list assets and liabilities. But the form is not audited and may not be accurate. For instance, the Guardian newspaper reported that a Trump golf course is listed in the document as being worth $50 million — but in a lawsuit, Trump has claimed it was worth only $1.4 million.
First, the tax return reveals a person’s annual income. A person’s net worth is not disclosed, but voters would gain an understanding of a person’s cash flow.
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