The president has said since 2016 that he could not waive taxes due to an ongoing IRS review. With those gone, regulators say he has no excuse.
Department of Justice proposes $1.776 billion in ‘legal fees’ funding to resolve Trump’s IRS lawsuit
The Justice Department has offered a $1.776 billion settlement after President Donald Trump dropped a $10 billion IRS lawsuit.
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s longstanding explanation for not releasing his tax returns was upended on May 19 when Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche released a Justice Department document that effectively halts existing Internal Revenue Service audits, investigations and enforcement actions against Trump, his family and his vast business empire.
Since the 2016 campaign, Trump has refused to follow the tradition of U.S. presidents releasing their tax returns, saying he cannot release them because of an ongoing Internal Revenue Service audit.
On May 20, as he stepped off Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, President Trump was asked about the agreement between him and his administration, and he told reporters, “We may release current veterans.”
Meghan Faulkner, director of communications for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, a Washington watchdog group, called on Trump to release his taxes now that the audit is complete.
“Donald Trump has previously claimed that ongoing audits prevent him from releasing his tax returns, but now that the IRS has agreed not to audit them, he appears free to release them according to his own standards,” Faulkner told USA TODAY. “He should absolutely waive taxes, as every president but him has done for the past 50 years.”
However, Trump has previously said he would release his tax returns, and it is unclear whether he will actually do so now.
What are the White House and Trump Organization saying?
The White House told USA TODAY on May 21 that it would not comment on whether or when Trump would release past tax returns, but also exclusively revealed that the president and Vice President J.D. Vance have not yet filed their 2025 tax returns.
“The president and vice president requested and received a 45-day extension to compile the necessary financial information and complete the report,” a White House official told USA TODAY on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
“This has been done before,” the official said, but declined to provide further details when asked.
The White House referred USA TODAY to a statement to reporters about how the president will disclose his “current earnings” and the Trump Organization, which oversees Trump’s vast and growing real estate empire and other businesses.
Alan Garten, executive vice president and chief legal officer of the Trump Organization, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Justice Department’s agreement comes as Trump drops a recent $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS for leaking to the New York Times some tax data showing that he paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017.
It also includes a $1.776 billion fund to compensate people the committee determines have been unfairly targeted by the federal government, which could include the president’s allies and those who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“I’m not going to hold my breath.”
Some good government advocates are skeptical that Trump will release his tax returns, given all the excuses he has made in the past, including during the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns.
“I’m not going to hold my breath given President Trump’s willingness to obstruct and obstruct fiscal transparency,” Faulkner said. “Of course I want to be surprised and give the American people the transparency they deserve.”
Before launching his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump said he would “absolutely” release his tax returns if he ran for president.
During the Republican primary campaign, he vowed to provide “very big, very beautiful” benefits and even suggested the possibility of providing the public with comprehensive financial records of many of the companies under his control.
Over the years, Mr. Trump has given various reasons for not releasing the information, most notably that his lawyers told him not to release it because of an IRS audit. At one point, he said voters wouldn’t care because “there’s nothing to learn from them.”
President Trump told reporters in 2016 that his tax rate “doesn’t concern you” and that he paid “a lot” of taxes, although he did not provide details. And he boasted that he was fighting “hard to pay as little taxes as possible.”
During the recent campaign, Mr. Trump offered similar excuses for withholding tax information.
Trump has always freely waived taxes despite audits.
Biden administration Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Danny Wuerffel told USA TODAY that “the type of audit exemption being considered is unprecedented,” but it was unclear whether it would be “an incentive or a deterrent” for President Trump to actually release his tax returns.
The president has no legal obligation to waive taxes.
Werfel said “this is a more common practice” for most presidents, especially in recent decades.
The IRS said people who are being audited are not prohibited from releasing their tax returns.
Is President Trump trying to hide an IRS audit that says he may be owed $100 million?
Some tax experts have questioned whether Mr. Trump will release his tax details after a bombshell investigation uncovered by The New York Times in 2020 revealed that Mr. Trump may owe up to $100 million in unpaid taxes and interest.
In September 2020, when President Trump was campaigning for re-election, the Times reported that he only paid $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017. “For 10 of the past 15 years, he paid no income taxes at all, in large part because he reported losing far more money than he earned,” the Times reported, citing President Trump’s tax return data and the tax returns he filed with the IRS, which he has long sought to keep private.
Trump is also embroiled in a decade-long audit battle with the IRS over the legitimacy of a $72.9 million tax refund he claimed and received after declaring huge losses. “An unfavorable verdict could cost him more than $100 million,” the newspaper wrote.
In response to the report, Democratic Representative Mike Levin of California said that President Trump’s settlement of the IRS lawsuit was “the most corrupt I’ve ever seen an American president do.”
“Where the heck are my Republican colleagues?” Levin said in a May 21 X post.
Blanche, President Trump’s former personal attorney, defended the agreement, dismissing the 2020 Times report as “untrue” and “a completely fabricated definition of fake news” without providing any information to refute the paper’s report.
“The amazing fact that in exchange for a settlement, a sitting president of the United States does not have to go through another audit that has been going on for years and years, should not surprise the American people,” Blanche told CNN on May 20. “It shouldn’t surprise Congress either.”
