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trump tax returns
'The Guy Is a Hero': IRS Contractor Who Leaked Trump Tax Returns Gets Max Sentence
"Billionaires control our lives and our government and pay... lower tax rates than the rest of us, but this is the bad guy who should be punished with a five-year prison sentence?"
Jan 29, 2024
As the U.S. tax season began Monday, a former Internal Revenue Service contractor who leaked to the media the tax records of wealthy Americans including ex-President Donald Trump was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay a $5,000 fine.
U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes, an appointee of President Joe Biden, handed down the maximum sentence to Charles Littlejohn, who pleaded guilty to unauthorized disclosure of tax returns and return information in October. Littlejohn gave The New York Timesinformation on Trump—who is expected to face Biden in the November election—and shared with ProPublica data on Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and more.
While Reyes called the decision to release Trump's filings "an attack on our constitutional democracy" and Littlejohn told the court that he "acted out of a sincere but misguided belief that I was serving the public," others framed the 38-year-old's move as heroic.
"This guy is a hero who showed us how the superrich steal from the American public,"
Slate politics writer Alexander Sammon said Monday. "Naturally, the judge gave him a max sentence, claiming it was 'a moral imperative' to punish him as harshly as possible."
Jeff Hauser of the Revolving Door Project noted that "this whistleblower's cause has been ignored by a LOT of people who have defended much more intrusive leaking. (Tax returns were public in the past, are in some countries now, and should be fully transparent—they're inherently public information, unlike, e.g., John Podesta's emails)."
People's Policy Project founder Matt Bruenig similarly pointed out that "in Finland, these returns are public record available to anyone who wants to see them."
After decades of presidential candidates voluntarily releasing income tax returns, Trump declined to do so—breaking his promise to make them public. The Republican also unsuccessfully fought to block Congress from receiving some of his tax records.
After the sentencing on Monday, Littlejohn's attorney told reporters that his only statement was to thank the court for consideration of the case. Meanwhile, Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri of the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) Criminal Division said that his "sentence sends a strong message that those who violate laws intended to protect sensitive tax information will face significant punishment."
When Littlejohn pleaded guilty last year, ProPublicadeclined to comment other than reiterating that the news outlet "doesn't know the identity of the source who provided this trove of information on the taxes paid by the wealthiest Americans."
Charlie Stadtlander,a spokesperson for the Times, said last year that "we remain concerned when whistleblowers who provide information in the public interest are prosecuted. The Times' reporting on this topic played an important role in helping the public understand the financial ties and tax strategies of a sitting president—information that has long been seen as central to the knowledge that voters should have about the leader of our government and the candidates for that high office."
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On Greed and Tax Avoidance, Says Bernie Sanders, 'Trump Is Not Alone'
"Yes. Dr. King was right," says the U.S. Senator from Vermont. "We have socialism for the rich, rugged capitalism for the rest."
Dec 31, 2022
Senator Bernie Sanders is not asking anyone to be shocked that Donald J. Trump was very good at not paying taxes, but he also wants people to know that the disgraced former Republican president is far from the only rich person or powerful corporation who gets away with paying little or nothing each year federal income tax.
In a tweet on Friday evening, Sanders said: "When it comes to tax avoidance, Trump is not alone."
Sanders then listed a handful of well-known and highly-profitable companies that paid nothing in federal income tax in 2020, the most recent year detailed figures are available for many companies.
"Yes. Dr. King was right," added Sanders: "We have socialism for the rich, rugged capitalism for the rest."
\u201cWhen it comes to tax avoidance, Trump is not alone.\n\nFederal income taxes paid in 2020:\n\nNike: $0\nFedEx: $0\nHP: $0\nSalesforce: $0\nDish Network: $0\nCharter Communications: $0\nDuke Energy: $0\n\nYes. Dr. King was right. We have socialism for the rich, rugged capitalism for the rest.\u201d— Bernie Sanders (@Bernie Sanders) 1672435263
On Friday, the House Ways and Means Committee released to the public Trump's tax returns after a yearslong legal fight to obtain them from the IRS after the former president broke with precedent by refusing to release them voluntarily.
What the returns and associated documents released by the committee show is an inside look into how very wealthy individuals diminish their tax liability or pay nothing at all year after year.
Specifically in 2020, Trump—despite his vast business holdings—paid no federal income taxes at all. Also in 2020, despite repeated promises to the public that he would donate all his presidential salary to charity, the New York Timesreported Saturday that the tax returns reveal he made no charitable gifts that year.
According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), at least 55 major U.S. corporations—including those named by Sanders—paid $0 in federal taxes on massive profits in 2020.
ITEP's analysis shows that these 55 corporations "would have paid a collective total of $8.5 billion for the year had they paid [the staturory federal rate of 21 percent]." Instead, including by benefiting greatly from the tax law that Trump and a GOP-controlled Congress passed in 2017, those companies collectively "received $3.5 billion in tax rebates."
In all, that's $12 billion less in taxes paid by some of the most profitable and largest companies in the nation.
As numerous outlets have detailed, Bloomberg's reporting states how "massive losses and large tax deductions in Donald Trump's returns reveal how the former president was able to use the tax code to minimize his income tax payments." According to the outlet:
The records illustrate how Trump, as a business owner and a real estate developer, is eligible for a bevy of tax breaks that most taxpayers can’t claim. The filings, which cover 2015 to 2020, also detail how Trump was affected by the 2017 tax-cut bill he signed into law.
The documents further show the sheer complexity of the tax code. As for many US business owners, the filings span hundreds of pages to account for domestic and foreign assets, credits, deductions, depreciation, and more.
Warren Gunnels, a top aide and advisor to Sen. Sanders, said Friday night that far-reaching tax breaks is not the only benefit that Trump received which too many regular people are still denied in the United States: free, taxpayer-funded healthcare.
Throughout his presidency, including when he was suffering from Covid-19, Trump was provided care via the Veterans Administration.
"In 2020, not only did Trump pay nothing in federal incomes taxes, not only did he get a $5.47 million tax refund, he also paid ZERO for his hospital stay at Walter Reed—a 100% government-run hospital," tweeted Gunnels.
"Yes," he added, echoing Sanders. "Trump loves socialism for himself, rugged capitalism for the rest."
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House Panel Releases Six Years of Donald Trump's Tax Returns
"Trump used questionable or poorly substantiated deductions and a number of other tax avoidance schemes as justification to pay little or no federal income tax," said one House Democrat.
Dec 30, 2022
After a protracted legal fight and relentless obstruction by the former president, the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday finally released six years of Donald Trump's individual and business tax returns.
"It is a bittersweet moment," Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), a member of the House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee, wrote on Twitter, lamenting how long it took for lawmakers to obtain the documents and make them public. "I will read through them today and you should too. Every American deserves this sunlight. This is what democracy is about."
A download link for the returns, which span 2015 to 2020 and are redacted to conceal sensitive personal information such as Social Security numbers, is here (warning: the file is very large—1.1 GB—and in ZIP format).
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) also published the documents as more easily downloadable PDFs on its website.
The long-awaited release of the documents came after the House Ways and Means Committee voted last week to make them public. The committee also published a summary confirming that Trump—who broke with longstanding tradition by refusing to release the documents voluntarily—paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017 and $0 in 2020.
The summary made clear that Trump turned to avoidance tactics that the ultra-rich often use to slash their tax bills. In the years covered by the newly published documents, the former president reported massive net operating losses, allowing him to dramatically reduce or completely zero out his tax liabilities.
The House committee, which Democrats control until next week, also revealed earlier this month that the IRS didn't begin auditing Trump's taxes until 2019, despite the agency's mandatory presidential audit policy.
"Trump acted as though he had something to hide, a pattern consistent with the recent conviction of his family business for criminal tax fraud," Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), a member of the House tax panel, said in a statement Friday. "As the public will now be able to see, Trump used questionable or poorly substantiated deductions and a number of other tax avoidance schemes as justification to pay little or no federal income tax in several of the years examined."
"These findings underscore the fact that our tax laws are often inequitable, and that enforcement of them is often unjust," Beyer continued. "Trump was able to bypass even the mandatory IRS presidential audit program for years, but many other wealthy and powerful people evade billions in tax dues every year through more quotidian tax avoidance. Congress has so much work to do to make tax enforcement in this country fairer."
In response to the release of his returns, Trump—a 2024 presidential candidate—proudly touted his expansive use of deductions to lower his tax bills.
"The 'Trump' tax returns once again show how proudly successful I have been and how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive for creating thousands of jobs and magnificent structures and enterprises," the former president said.
"The radical, left Democrats have weaponized everything," he fumed, "but remember, that is a dangerous two-way street!"
The former president's returns show that he personally benefited from some of the provisions of the tax-cut measure he signed into law in 2017. As Bloomberg noted, Trump took advantage of the law's "expanded write-offs for business expenses" and "the scaling back of the alternative minimum tax, or AMT, allowing him to claim more individual deductions."
"Trump acted as though he had something to hide, a pattern consistent with the recent conviction of his family business for criminal tax fraud."
Writing for The Atlantic on Friday, CREW president Noah Bookbinder urged the Senate Finance Committee to investigate the IRS' failure to audit Trump in the early years of his presidency.
"The public needs to know whether one more key government function was politicized, allowing a president to shield possible conflicts of interest and escape accountability," Bookbinder wrote. "The American people need reassurances that transparency, oversight, and accountability will once again become matters of course rather than subjects of prolonged litigation."
"Donald Trump attempted to hijack the United States government to keep himself in power, and American democracy almost didn't survive," he added. "His tax returns may have been another part of that effort. That merits investigation—not over another six years, but now."
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