On Tuesday, December 20, the US House of Representatives Committee voted to release Donald Trump’s tax returns. This is reported by the American edition of The Washington Post.

The publication says that representatives of the US Democratic Party have been trying to get Trump’s tax returns released for more than three years. As a result of the vote, the committee must release the tax returns of the former US president from 2015 to 2020 to the public.

Democrats in a commentary to the publication recall that in 2016, during the election campaign, Donald Trump refused to release his income reports, citing an ongoing investigation by the Internal Revenue Service. Reportedly, the Committee first requested reports only in 2019.

“The American people want to know if the president of the United States makes decisions based on their interests or the president’s own financial interests,” said Rep. Jimmy Gomez.

According to spokesman Lloyd Doggett, the reports contain information on tens of millions of dollars. However, this fact could not be confirmed, since the documents were not made public.

Trump’s campaign called the Committee’s vote “unfair” and accused the Democrats of playing a politically motivated game.

Why can Congress get Donald Trump’s tax returns?
The Washington Post journalists note that such incidents with American presidents have not occurred since 1973. Then the IRS submitted President Richard M. Nixon’s declarations to a congressional committee.

The first attempt to get Trump’s tax returns came after the Democrats won a majority in the House of Representatives in 2019. With his refusal to provide the requested documents, the former US leader broke a long tradition of American presidential candidates.

According to The New York Times, published in 2020, before running for president, Donald Trump evaded taxes for 10 years. The claim was disputed by a spokesman for Trump, who said he paid tens of millions of dollars in “personal taxes” to the federal government.

The fact that Donald Trump did not pay federal income tax was mentioned by the 2016 Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton during the debate. In response to the opponent’s accusation, Trump said that “it makes me smart.”