The key word here is presumptive Trump may have the delegates, but as yet he hasn’t been crowned the nominee. The information on a person is for the IRS not public consumption to peruse at leisure. It also allows the press to pick apart the nominee’s personal business before he became the nominee.
In a May 15 interview with Republican National Committee
Chair Reince Priebus, Fox
News Sunday host
Chris Wallace noted that it’s become customary over the past several decades
for presidential candidates to release their tax returns. Wallace’s telling of
history is a little off, though the force of his point is correct: Wallace
said, "Every Republican nominee since Richard Nixon, who at one time was
under an audit, has released their tax returns." Fact Checking Wallace’s statement:
The IRS did audit Nixon, and he did release his tax returns. But
he released them after he won re-election. His successor, Ford, released a tax
summary spanning several years but never his full returns.
That being said, every Republican nominee since then — six
nominees over nine elections — has disclosed their tax returns.
The Republican has released his tax returns in the last nine
presidential cycles. We rate this claim Mostly True.
After we looked
into the history of candidate tax returns before. But we haven’t dug into the
story of former President Richard Nixon’s audit, so we thought we should put
Wallace’s claim on the Truth-O-Meter.
Every Republican nominee since Nixon
The Tax History Project has compiled the tax returns of many
current and former candidates and presidents. Each Republican nominee in the
past nine presidential elections has released his tax returns: Ronald Reagan
(1980, 1984), George H. W. Bush (1988, 1992), Bob Dole (1996), George W. Bush (2000, 2004),
John McCain (2008) and Mitt Romney (2012).
That leaves one nominee since Nixon, Nixon’s vice president,
Gerald Ford. Ford never released his full tax returns. He released summary data
about his returns from 1966 through 1974.
The summary data includes his total income and the total tax he paid but not an
itemized breakdown Nixon did not release his tax returns in 1968 or 1972.
Nixon said one of his most well-known lines amid this scandal: "People have got
to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I am not a
crook."
Nixon eventually released a slew of financial information to the
public in December 1973, including the previous four years of tax returns, to
try to quell the criticism. He asked a congressional committee to examine them,
too.
"Our lack of knowledge about presidential and candidate
audits is one reason why it’s important for public officials to release their
tax returns publicly," he said. "Disclosure is the only way voters
can be sure that these returns are getting adequate scrutiny."
In Trump’s case the voters don’t seem to care it’s only the left
and the pundits who want something to talk about. Trump FEC financials have
been reported and he purchased the old post office in DC presenting all the
financial information required to purchase real estate from the government.
That should be enough.
