We Still Want To See Trump’s Tax Returns

This Friday President Trump released a 98 page financial disclosure form, which showed the details of his wealth. However, the disclosure form still left a great deal of questions unanswered. These included questions regarding not only his income, but also the details of his vast number of holdings.

Trump is the first US president in the past four decades to decline to release his tax returns. While the disclosure was a nice gesture, his tax returns would be far better.

The president willingly filed the disclosure form with the Office of Government Ethics this Friday. Trump was not required to file these forms, but did so voluntarily. The forms cover his given earrings over the past 15 months, until next spring.

The reports show Trump’s vast wealth, as he has taken hundreds of millions of income, while holding liabilities of about $300 million.

The President earned $288 million from his golf courses alone. He made $37 million from Mar-a-Lago, his common weekend resort which he often visits with the first family.

The issue with the financial disclosure form is that they only require ranges of assets and liability, which makes it particularly difficult to obtain an accurate sense of what the President’s wealth really is. The truth of the matter is that we will not know in detail how much Trump pays in taxes until he releases his tax returns. The disclosure forms do not require him to detail  profits and losses from various business, as well as if he has any holdings in foreign companies, or whether or not he has donated to any charities.

This past February Trump took to twitter to state, “Just for your info, tax returns have 0 to do w/ someone’s net worth. I have already filed my financial statements w/ FEC. They are great!” He has since continued to repeat this line any time he has been asked about his taxes.

While Steve Mnuchin, the Treasurer Secretary, stated in April that, “the president has released plenty of information and has given more financial disclosure than anybody else,” adding: “I think the American population has plenty of information on his taxes.”

However, many have argued that this statement is in fact inaccurate. Some say that filing the disclosures is just Trump’s way of dodging the question about his taxes in the future. But the key point is that the disclosure forms do not act as a substitute of his tax forms when trying to understand his financial standing and variety of commitments.

Featured Image via Flickr.