As millions of Americans scramble to file their tax returns by Monday’s deadline, many are wondering what’s in the private tax returns of this year’s presidential candidates.
That’s an open question in the case of candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, neither of whom have disclosed years of tax returns.
Sanders released his 2014 tax return late Friday. It showed that he and his wife, Jane, earned $205,271 that year, largely from his $174,000 Senate salary and the Social Security benefits they both receive.
He owed $27,653 in federal taxes, but had $31,825 withheld, and received a $4,172 return, according to the documents.
Still, only Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has fully disclosed years worth of returns. Sanders has released an abbreviated version of his taxes for a single year. Trump hasn’t released anything, while his Republican challengers, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, have made only partial tax information public.
All told, the 2016 presidential campaign has been an abysmal one so far for tax transparency, according to tax experts and government watchdog groups.
“It has been pretty bad,” said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen, an advocacy group. “To tell the truth, it’s really only Hillary that’s been fully complying with that expectation that the candidates release all their tax returns. All the other candidates have released just the summary pages . . . and not the details.”
Without the full returns, voters can’t see such items as sources of income, which tax breaks they claimed, what they might have deducted as business expenses or how much they gave to charity, said Joseph Thorndike, director of the Tax History Project at Tax Analysts and author of the “Politics of Federal Taxation” column for Tax Notes magazine.
“In some ways, it’s even more insidious; we’re watering down what counts as a tax disclosure,” he said.
There is no requirement that candidates show their tax returns, but it has become common practice for White House seekers since Jimmy Carter became president in 1976.
The returns provide voters a look into the personal finances and charitable contributions of candidates and gives insight into whether he or she has any potential conflicts of interest.
Trump has maintained that he can’t release copies of his recent tax returns because he’s currently being audited by the Internal Revenue Service.