Donald Trump: I’ll release tax returns after audit
By Jeremy Diamond, CNN
Updated
10:38 AM EDT, Thu May 12, 2016
Story highlights
Trump cites IRS audit as reason why he hasn't released his tax returns
"There's nothing to learn from them"
(CNN) —
Donald Trump said Wednesday that he plans to release his taxes when an IRS audit is completed, despite telling the Associated Press the previous day that he would not release his tax documents.
“In interview I told @AP that my taxes are under routine audit and I would release my tax returns when audit is complete, not after election!” the real estate mogul tweeted Wednesday, after Trump’s critics, including Mitt Romney and other Republicans, who have urged Trump to make his tax returns available.
Trump’s resistance to releasing his tax documents leaves major questions for voters weighing a candidate whose campaign is staked on his business acumen and the fact that he is “very, very rich” – and would mark a major break with decades of precedent set by the nominees of the two major political parties.
The presumptive Republican nominee told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday “there’s nothing to learn from them.”
President-elect Donald Trump has been in the spotlight for years. From developing real estate and producing and starring in TV shows, he became a celebrity long before winning the White House.
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Trump at age 4. He was born in 1946 to Fred and Mary Trump in New York City. His father was a real estate developer.
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Trump, left, in a family photo. He was the second-youngest of five children.
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Trump, center, stands at attention during his senior year at the New York Military Academy in 1964.
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Trump, center, wears a baseball uniform at the New York Military Academy in 1964. After he graduated from the boarding school, he went to college. He started at Fordham University before transferring and later graduating from the Wharton School, the University of Pennsylvania's business school.
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Trump stands with Alfred Eisenpreis, New York's economic development administrator, in 1976 while they look at a sketch of a new 1,400-room renovation project of the Commodore Hotel. After graduating college in 1968, Trump worked with his father on developments in Queens and Brooklyn before purchasing or building multiple properties in New York and Atlantic City, New Jersey. Those properties included Trump Tower in New York and Trump Plaza and multiple casinos in Atlantic City.
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Trump attends an event to mark the start of construction of the New York Convention Center in 1979.
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Trump wears a hard hat at the Trump Tower construction site in New York in 1980.
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Trump was married to Ivana Zelnicek Trump from 1977 to 1990, when they divorced. They had three children together: Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric.
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The Trump family, circa 1986.
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Trump uses his personal helicopter to get around New York in 1987.
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Trump stands in the atrium of the Trump Tower.
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Trump attends the opening of his new Atlantic City casino, the Taj Mahal, in 1989.
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Trump signs his second book, "Trump: Surviving at the Top," in 1990. Trump has published at least 16 other books, including "The Art of the Deal" and "The America We Deserve."
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Trump and singer Michael Jackson pose for a photo before traveling to visit Ryan White, a young child with AIDS, in 1990.
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Trump dips his second wife, Marla Maples, after the couple married in a private ceremony in New York in December 1993. The couple divorced in 1999 and had one daughter together, Tiffany.
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Trump putts a golf ball in his New York office in 1998.
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An advertisement for the television show "The Apprentice" hangs at Trump Tower in 2004. The show launched in January of that year. In January 2008, the show returned as "Celebrity Apprentice."
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A 12-inch talking Trump doll is on display at a toy store in New York in September 2004.
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Trump attends a news conference in 2005 that announced the establishment of Trump University. From 2005 until it closed in 2010, Trump University had about 10,000 people sign up for a program that promised success in real estate. Three separate lawsuits -- two class-action suits filed in California and one filed by New York's attorney general -- argued that the program was mired in fraud and deception. Trump's camp rejected the suits' claims as "baseless." And Trump has charged that the New York case against him is politically motivated.
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Trump attends the U.S. Open tennis tournament with his third wife, Melania Knauss-Trump, and their son, Barron, in 2006. Trump and Knauss married in 2005.
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Trump wrestles with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin at WrestleMania in 2007. Trump has close ties with the WWE and its CEO, Vince McMahon.
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For "The Apprentice," Trump was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in January 2007.
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Trump appears on the set of "The Celebrity Apprentice" with two of his children -- Donald Jr. and Ivanka -- in 2009.
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Trump poses with Miss Universe contestants in 2011. Trump had been executive producer of the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants since 1996.
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In 2012, Trump announces his endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
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Trump speaks in Sarasota, Florida, after accepting the Statesman of the Year Award at the Sarasota GOP dinner in August 2012. It was shortly before the Republican National Convention in nearby Tampa.
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Trump appears on stage with singer Nick Jonas and television personality Giuliana Rancic during the 2013 Miss USA pageant.
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In June 2015, during a speech from Trump Tower, Trump announced that he was running for President. He said he would give up "The Apprentice" to run.
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Trump -- flanked by U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio, left, and Ted Cruz -- speaks during a CNN debate in Miami on March 10. Trump dominated the GOP primaries and emerged as the presumptive nominee in May.
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The Trump family poses for a photo in New York in April.
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Trump speaks during a campaign event in Evansville, Indiana, on April 28. After Trump won the Indiana primary, his last two competitors dropped out of the GOP race.
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Trump delivers a speech at the Republican National Convention in July, accepting the party's nomination for President. "I have had a truly great life in business," he said. "But now, my sole and exclusive mission is to go to work for our country -- to go to work for you. It's time to deliver a victory for the American people."
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Trump faces Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the first presidential debate, which took place in Hempstead, New York, in September.
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Trump apologizes in a video, posted to his Twitter account in October, for vulgar and sexually aggressive remarks he made a decade ago regarding women. "I said it, I was wrong and I apologize," Trump said, referring to lewd comments he made during a previously unaired taping of "Access Hollywood." Multiple Republican leaders rescinded their endorsements of Trump after the footage was released.
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Trump walks on stage with his family after he was declared the election winner on November 9. "Ours was not a campaign, but rather, an incredible and great movement," he told his supporters in New York.
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Trump is joined by his family as he is sworn in as President on January 20.
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Despite telling conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in February 2015 – before he declared his candidacy – he “would release tax returns,” Trump has pivoted to say he would not do so while his income tax filings are still under audit by the Internal Revenue Service. Given that he says his tax returns since 2009 are still under audit, it is highly unlikely Trump will release anything before the November 2016 election if he sticks to that reasoning.
“He still leaves himself this out by saying if this audit wraps up before the November election, then sure he’ll release his tax returns,” said Julie Pace, one of the AP reporters who interviewed him, on CNN’s “At This Hour.” “We said, ‘Will you push your lawyers on this, will you tell them that voters deserve to know this information regardless of the audit?’ He said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘One, the voters don’t actually care about this, and two, there is no new l information that would come out of the tax returns.’”
In February, the IRS said: “Federal privacy rules prohibit the IRS from discussing individual tax matters. Nothing prevents individuals from sharing their own tax information.”
The Trump campaign did not respond to CNN requests for comment.
Trump has resisted pressure from Democrats and forces within his own party – most notably 2012 GOP nominee – who have called on him to release tax returns.
Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican who has endorsed Trump, also told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday that the real estate mogul told him that he intends to release his taxes after the audit.
“I think he should and I think he will. There’s no law, but there is a tradition,” Issa said.
Romney reiterated that call to release the documents in a Facebook post Wednesday afternoon.
“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,” said Romney, long a vociferous critic of Trump’s. “Tax returns provide the public with its sole confirmation of the veracity of a candidate’s representations regarding charities, priorities, wealth, tax conformance, and conflicts of interest.”
Romney also dismissed Trump’s refusal to release the returns on the basis that he’s being audited.
“There is only one logical explanation for Mr. Trump’s refusal to release his returns: there is a bombshell in them. Given Mr. Trump’s equanimity with other flaws in his history, we can only assume it’s a bombshell of unusual size,” Romney said.
An aide for Trump said that Romney did not volunteer his tax return but was instead pressured to do so.
“Mitt Romney got forced into it,” Michael Cohen, Trump’s counsel, said on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront.” “He didn’t have the backbone like Donald Trump does.”
Issa brushed aside Romney’s criticism, saying, “Mitt right now needs to get over the fact that somebody he didn’t pick won.”
The tax returns would give voters information about Trump’s effective tax rate, his charitable contributions and his income – all data points for which the billionaire has come under intense scrutiny.
Trump in late March released a letter from his tax attorneys confirming that the billionaire real estate mogul’s tax filings from 2009 onward remain under review by the IRS.
Still, Trump has also refused to release his tax returns from previous years, which are no longer under IRS audit.
CNN’s Tal Kopan and Julia Manchester contributed to this report.
