US elected officials voted Tuesday, December 20 in favor of the publication of the tax returns of former Republican President Donald Trump, who fought a legal battle for several years to keep them private.
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Before the vote, elected Democrats had not ruled out making these tax sheets immediately public upon approval, but the exact date of publication was not yet known immediately after the vote.
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Donald Trump, who has embarked on a new race for the White House for 2024, had not made known his tax returns, unlike all his predecessors since the 1970s, raising many questions about their content .
A committee of the House of Representatives, sitting in particular on tax affairs and with a Democratic majority until the installation of the new Republican majority at the beginning of January, voted 24 votes in favor and 16 against in favor of the publication of the six years of billionaire’s tax sheets between 2015 and 2020.
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This group of elected officials had been demanding for three years the documents sent to the tax authorities by the billionaire between these years, which he refused. The Supreme Court finally ruled in their favor at the end of November. Only a handful of elected officials have so far been able to read it.
Trump only paid $750 in income tax the year he was elected
The lack of transparency of Donald Trump, who has made his wealth a campaign argument, has fueled speculation for years about the extent of his fortune or potential conflicts of interest.
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His family business, the Trump Organization, was found guilty in early December of financial and tax fraud after a trial in New York where the former Republican president was not tried.
Kevin Brady, elected Republican on the commission, had warned before the vote that a possible publication “would open the door” that parliamentarians “have almost unlimited powers to go after their political enemies by obtaining and making public their private tax returns”.
“Even if the Democrats assure that it is not political”continued a press release from the elected Republicans, “their eagerness to publish the documents with a rushed, botched process shows that their motivations are very political”.
