President Trump missed a deadline last week to file his 2016 federal tax return. Every president in the modern era abided by the deadline and made their document public. But Trump has remained steadfast in his decision to withhold his return from the American people. The media, meanwhile, has already seemed to move on from the subject.
The Trump White House and Republicans in Congress have been preparing to rollout tax reform legislation. They have faced questions as to how this legislation will affect the middle class. Yet no one has been asked how this tax plan will have an impact on Trump's bottom line.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump was consistently berated to release his tax returns. His rival Hillary Clinton pointed to his undisclosed returns as a testament to his trustworthiness — or lack thereof. To appease critics, Trump frequently promised to release them.
In October 2015, he told ABC News that, "at some point, I'll release it." A few months later, in January 2016, when he was vying for the Republican nomination, Trump told NBC that his campaign was "working on that right now. I have very big returns, as you know, and I have everything all approved and beautiful, and we'll be working on that over the next period of time. . . . At the appropriate time, you'll be very satisfied.”
Trump later changed his tune and claimed he could not release his tax returns because he was being audited by the Internal Revenue Service.
