Clinton and Romney called on Trump to release his tax returns following an Associated Press interview Tuesday, in which the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said doesn’t have an obligation to release the records and won’t do so until an audit of his finances is completed.
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Donald Trump has sparked fresh controversy by declaring he will not release his tax returns – making him the first major party presidential candidate to refuse to do so in four decades.
Trump is also refusing to release his tax returns from previous years, which are no longer under audit.
Trump stressed his point once more on Wednesday, minutes after Romney’s Facebook outburst, stressing in a tweet that his “taxes are under routine audit” and will be released when the audit has been completed.
Not only could the public learn his income and the scope of his charitable giving – which has been called into doubt – the returns could indicate whether Trump is leveraging his assets and thus vulnerable to defaulting on his debts. The last Republicans was their former tax dodging nominee telling their current tax dodging nominee that he has disqualified himself by not releasing his tax returns.
In Pennsylvania, Trump’s attorneys included tax returns from 2000 through 2004 in a set of documents that the state’s Gaming Control Board stamped as “received” on February 9, 2006.
It’s also a sharp break from Trump’s own advice to Mitt Romney. “I hope that’s soon”, Trump said.
Watch Trump flip-flop on releasing his tax returns in the video above.
In other words, we’re dealing with one of those nicely packaged controversies in which a presidential candidate is guilty of secrecy, dishonesty, and hypocrisy – all at the same time. “Further, he could release returns for the years immediately prior to the years under audit”. “He has released just one detailed proposal in this whole campaign”, Clinton said, referring to the real estate tycoon’s tax plan. In 1973, President Richard Nixon publicly released his returns while they were under audit.
Hillary Clinton piled onto that, saying, “When you run for president, especially when you become the nominee that is kind of expected”.
On Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton said Mr. Trump’s comments raised questions. His tax returns would not necessarily provide clues about his net worth, but they would give better estimates about how much he makes, and from what sources. “I’ll do it as fast as the auditors finish”, he said, boasting of his wealth.
“We’ll see. I mean, we’re gonna see”.
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Trump was loudly critical in 2012 when GOP nominee Mitt Romney delayed the release of his latest tax income tax filing.
