With less than two months to go until Election Day, Donald Trump has been chatting about his health with Dr. Oz, getting his hair tousled by Jimmy Fallon, and admitting President Obama was born in the US after all, but he doesn’t seem to be any closer to releasing his tax returns.
Trump and his campaign have consistently maintained that there’s no good reason why he should release them, with excuses varying from an audit (the IRS clarified that you can still release tax returns during an audit) to tax forms being beyond the comprehension of the average American. This is also despite the fact that every major presidential candidate for the past 40 years – including Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, has released their tax returns for public perusal.
What’s more, in an interview with Ireland’s TV3 news channel back in May 2014, Trump vowed that he would release his tax returns if he were to run for office.
The interview resurfaced yesterday on Buzzfeed – timely as it also concerned Donald Trump’s birther campaign, through which he stoked skepticism over whether President Obama was indeed born in Hawaii, leading to the president releasing his long-form birth certificate to the public in 2011.
Trump had declared that if Obama released his birth certificate, he would release his tax returns. However, as TV3’s Colette Fitzpatrick pointed out, he never did.
“You questioned his citizenship during his campaign, and you said afterwards if he produced that long-form birth certificate, you’d produce your tax returns. But you didn’t do it, did you?” asked Fitzpatrick.
“Well, I don’t know — did he do it?” Trump asked. “If I decide to run for office I’ll produce my tax returns. Absolutely. I would love to do that. I did produce a financial statement even though I wasn’t even running. I did produce a financial statement and it was shocking to some because it was so much higher than people thought possible.”
We’re ready and eager to be shocked by those tax returns, Mr. Trump.
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