Why do political candidates typically make their tax returns public?

The tax returns of presidents and presidential candidates in the United States are protected by law from unauthorized disclosure. The IRS is barred from releasing ANY of their tax information whatsoever. Since the 1970s most (but not all) candidates for president have released some or all of their tax returns to the public. The reason is straightforward. Career politicians often enter political life with very little personal wealth and tax returns can help determine if they’ve been using their public offices for personal gain. If you began your political career with $100,000 in the bank and twenty years later you’re worth $300,000,000 the voters might have a number of questions for you — think Hillary Clinton.

The biggest irony is that the vast majority of members of Congress do not release their tax returns. Despite calls from Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi for Donald Trump to release his taxes — neither of them have released their returns — just 17 out of the 535 members of Congress have done so. Why do they insist that presidential candidates release their returns and yet won’t release their own?

While it makes a lot of sense to review the tax returns of career politicians it makes as much sense for a private citizen seeking office to want to keep their tax returns private. In the case of Donald Trump, someone who has never held elected office, who owns more than 500 corporations and whose tax returns include more than 10,000 pages of information release of his returns could be detrimental to his business interests. Trump’s returns have been reviewed and audited many times — in fact his post-2008 returns are being audited now. If he was somehow cheating on his taxes the IRS would have caught him. Since Trump has been a private citizen he hasn’t been able to sell access or engage in pay-to-play politics. The possible downsides significantly outweigh the possible upsides of disclosure — if Trump was my client I would recommend he keep his returns private — as is his right.

At the end of the day Trump’s tax returns aren’t going to convince a single Hillary or Trump supporter to switch their vote. Given the fact that Hillary’s returns show us she has made a veritable fortune as a politician I’m not sure it makes sense for ANYONE to release their returns — the American people don’t seem to care if career politicians use their office for person gain.