Five Years Later: Statement on Report on Trump Taxes

Washington, D.C. – This evening, U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-Austin), a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee who has been pressing since February 2017 for Trump’s taxes, released this statement:

“Donald Trump had big deductions, big credits, and big losses—but seldom a big tax bill. Almost five years since my first motion to obtain Trump’s tax returns, some of them will soon be public. The success of our inquiry underscores the failure of Trump’s IRS to hold him accountable by failing to initiate timely, thorough Presidential audits—none of which have yet been completed. Trump claimed tens of millions of dollars in losses and credits without the type of substantiation an ordinary taxpayer would likely provide.

Many questions about foreign entanglements and conflicts remain unanswered and unknown, since the Committee inquiry was a narrow window into a narrow period of time, looking at only eight of about 500 Trump business entities for a period of only six years. Nor was the Committee able to speak with any IRS auditor. Many apparently unquestioned aspects of Trump’s returns show the need both for new Presidential audit legislation and a fairer tax system.

Though this is a very narrow glimpse at the ex-President’s claimed finances for a few moments in time, this inquiry has unearthed many questions about how someone who claimed to be so rich can avoid so many taxes and about how the IRS could fail to initiate an audit for so long.”

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