Trump 'may' release tax returns post-audit. Critics are skeptical

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump's long-running explanation for not releasing his tax returns was upended on May 19 when acting Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a Justice Department document that effectively shut down any existing Internal Revenue Service audits, investigations and enforcement actions against Trump, his family and his sprawling business empire.

Since his 2016 campaign, Trump has declined to follow the tradition of U.S. presidents releasing tax returns, saying he couldn't do so because of ongoing IRS audits.

“I may even release my current returns,” Trump told reporters May 20 when stepping off Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland when asked about the agreement between the president and his own administration.

Meghan Faulkner, communications director for the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, called on Trump to release his taxes now that the audits have shut down.

"Donald Trump has previously claimed that an ongoing audit prevented him from releasing his tax returns, and now that the IRS has agreed not to audit him, he is seemingly free to release them by his own standard,” Faulkner told USA TODAY. “He absolutely should release his taxes, as every president except him has for the last 50 years.”

But Trump has said he will release the returns before and whether he actually will now is unclear.

What do the White House and Trump Organization say?

The White House told USA TODAY on May 21 that it had no comment on whether, and when, Trump might release past tax returns, while also disclosing exclusively that the president – and Vice President JD Vance – have not yet filed their 2025 tax returns.

“The President and Vice President requested and received a 45-day extension in order to compile the necessary financial information and complete the report,” a White House official told USA TODAY on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

“This has been done previously as well,” the official said, but did not provide details when asked.

The White House referred USA TODAY to the president’s statement to reporters about how he might release his “current returns,” and to the Trump Organization, which oversees Trump’s sprawling – and growing – real estate empire and other businesses.

Alan Garten, the Trump Organization’s executive vice president and chief legal officer, did not immediately return a request for comment.

The DOJ deal accompanied Trump dropping a recently filed $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS for releasing some of his tax data, which was leaked to The New York Times, showing that he only paid $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and in 2017.

It also includes a $1.776 billion fund that could compensate the president's allies and others deemed by a commission to have been unfairly targeted by the federal government, potentially including those who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

'I won't be holding my breath'

Some good government advocates are skeptical that Trump will release his returns, given all of his excuses in the past, including during the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns.

“Given Trump's commitment to stonewalling and blocking transparency into his finances, I won't be holding my breath,” Faulkner said. “Of course, I'd love to be surprised, and have Americans get the overdue 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, he vowed to provide his “very big, very beautiful” returns, even hinting that he might provide the public with comprehensive financial records of his many companies.

Over the years, Trump has offered various reasons for not releasing the information, especially that his lawyers told him not to because of IRS audits. At one point, he said voters would not be interested because "there's nothing to learn from them."

Trump told reporters in 2016 that his tax rate is "none of your business," and that he had paid “substantial” taxes while declining to provide specifics. And he boasted that he fights “very hard to pay as little tax as possible.”

In more recent campaigns, Trump offered similar excuses for not releasing his tax information.

Trump has always been free to release his taxes despite audits

Biden administration IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel told USA TODAY that while “this type of audit immunity that's contemplated is unprecedented,” it’s not clear “whether it creates an incentive or disincentive” for Trump to actually release his tax returns.

Presidents are not legally required to release their taxes.

"It's just more common practice” that has been followed by most presidents, especially in recent decades, Werfel said.

The IRS has said that those undergoing audits are not prohibited from releasing their tax returns.

Is Trump trying to hide IRS audit saying he might owe $100 million?

Some tax experts are skeptical about whether Trump will release his tax details because a bombshell New York Times investigation in 2020 that said Trump could owe as much as $100 million in unpaid back taxes and interest.

In September 2020, as Trump was campaigning for reelection, the Times reported that he had paid only $750 in federal income taxes each in 2016 and 2017."He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years − largely because he reported losing much more money than he made," the Times reported, citing Trump tax return data and tax returns filed with the IRS that he had long sought to keep private.

A decade-long audit battle with the IRS over the legitimacy of a $72.9 million tax refund that he claimed, and received, after declaring huge losses was also hanging over Trump. "An adverse ruling," the newspaper wrote, "could cost him more than $100 million."

Given that reporting, Democratic Rep. Mike Levin of California said Trump’s settlement of his IRS lawsuit “is the most corrupt thing I’ve ever seen from an American president.”

“Where in the hell are my Republican colleagues?” Levin said in a May 21 X post.

Blanche, Trump’s former personal defense lawyer, defended the deal, and dismissed the Times report from 2020 as “not true” and “the definition of completely made-up fake news” without providing any information to rebut the paper's reporting.

“The unsurprising fact that an existing president of the United States does not have to go through more and more audits, which has been happening for years and years and years, in exchange for settling shouldn't surprise the American people,” Blanche told CNN on May 20. “It shouldn't surprise Congress.”