Fmr. President Trump releases his tax returns
(CNN) - After six years of promises, former President Donald Trump's tax returns are now public.
House democrats released the long sought-after documents that Trump tried to keep secret for years.
These include little or no income tax, foreign bank accounts and eyebrow raising details about loans to his adult children.
These are some of the findings after the Democratic led House Ways and Means Committee released six years worth of former President Trump's federal tax returns.
The returns also span from the year Trump announced his first run for President through his last year in office.
"The research that was done as it relates to the mandatory audit program was non-existent. The tax forms were really never audited," Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal spoke.
Low tax amounts
Previously, the report from the Joint Committee on Taxation revealed shockingly low tax amounts paid by the former President.
These include the following: paying only $750 in 2017, 2018 and 2019, paying a combined $1.1 million.
However, Trump paid no income tax in 2020, his final year in office.
Trump, offsetting his income by claiming millions of dollars in losses, raising questions about the former President's business failures.
While Trump paid less than $1,000 in U.S. income tax in 2017, the former President's tax bill totaled nearly a million dollars in foreign taxes the same year, indicating notable business dealings in more than a dozen countries including:
- Azerbaijan
- Turkey
- China
- Israel
- Brazil
Overall, these business dealings shed a light on where Trump's business interests were while he was in the White House.
Maintaining foreign bank accounts
The returns also showed Trump maintained foreign bank accounts while serving in the White House, including in China.
Some of Trump's business spending raised eyebrows among experts, including a 2017 claim that one of his businesses, DJT aerospace, made exactly the same amount spent, the zero net, ensuring there was nothing to tax.
This is something one tax expert has referred to as a "statistical impossibility."
"My personal tax returns, which show only that I've had tremendous success," Former President Donald Trump spoke.
Additionally, Trump is blasting the release as an outrageous abuse of power and calling for Republicans taking control of the House to immediately investigate Biden and his families' finances.
"It's so sad for our country. It's nothing, but another deranged political witch hunt. [This] has been going on from the day I came down the escalator in Trump Tower," Trump claimed.
