By Katrina Custardo
During the election, Trump decided to go against every other presidential nominee since the 1970s and not release his tax returns. He claimed it was because he was going through an IRS audit and assured us, the American public, that he would release them as soon as the audit was over. Closer to election day, the New York Times released pages from Trump’s 1995 income-tax records showing that he “claimed a $916 million loss that could have allowed him to legally avoid paying federal income taxes for up to 18 years.” Trump admitted to this and continued to say that he would release his tax forms once the audit was completed. Now, however, he’s flip-flopping on that.
Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s former campaign manager and current counselor, said on Sunday that Trump would no longer release his tax returns. This comes after the first Whitehouse.gov petition to go up on the new White House website, which calls for Trump to release his tax returns and has more than 330,000 signatures. Conway said, “We litigated this all through the election. People didn’t care.”
But people did care. People care about what Trump is hiding in his tax returns as is shown by the 330,000 signatures on the petition demanding that he show us what is in them. Throughout the election, Trump’s refusal to show his tax returns was met with a lot of harsh criticism, and for good reason. As a business man, Trump has businesses all over America and the world. He could easily be hiding the fact that he hasn’t paid federal taxes, something every American has to do.
A day later, Monday, Conway tweeted that Trump would release his tax returns after the audit, continuing the rhetoric that the candidate repeated throughout the election. She tweeted this. How unofficial can the Trump administration get?
But this does not help. As was said during the election, he can release his tax returns while under audit, because that does not stop someone from releasing tax returns. But what’s worse is that the Trump group is still flip-flopping on key issues. Trump is famous for flip-flopping on key issues that were brought up during the election (i.e., abortion) and even on things he said that was caught on tape (i.e., being for the Iraq war).
However, what the Trump administration cannot say without lying is that people do not want to see his tax returns. We, the people, do want to see what he could be hiding in his tax returns. The Washington Post-ABC conducted a poll last week that showed 74 percent of Americans want Trump to release his tax reforms, including 53 percent of Republicans. We, the people, do care about Trump’s tax returns. Trump and his administration will be held accountable for showing what the people want to see. So Trump, where are your tax returns? We are waiting.