Trumps paid $0 in taxes in 2020, reported negative income 4 times in 6 years, returns reveal

​The tax returns of former President Donald Trump and his wife Melania show they reported negative income in four of the six years between 2015 and 2020. ​

In three of those years — 2015, 2016 and 2017 –the Trumps reported income tax liability of just $750, a report from the House Ways and Means Committee revealed.

The Democrat-controlled panel voted 24-16 along party lines Tuesday evening to release the Trumps’ tax returns following a legal battle that began in 2016.

The full release of the returns is expected in the coming days after all personal information is redacted from them.

In the six-year period covered by the returns, the Trumps’ adjusted gross income totaled negative $53.2 million, and their total federal tax liability, including self-employment and household employment taxes, was $4.4 million.

Previous 1 of 3 Next Advertisement The report from the House Ways and Means Committee, regarding the IRS and former President Donald Trump’s tax returns. Information on former President Donald Trump’s tax returns, released in a staff report by the Joint Committee on Taxation are seen on Wednesday. Advertisement

The Trumps reported positive adjusted gross income in only two of those six years — $24.3 million in 2018 and $4.4 million in 2019.

In those years, the then-first couple’s tax bill increased, the report found, with the Trumps paying almost $1 million in taxes in 2018 and $133,445 in 2019.

In 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic raged across the country, the Trumps reported a loss of $4.8 million and paid $0 in federal taxes.

The panel voted 24-16 to release the Trumps’ tax returns following a legal battle that began in 2016. AP

​The tax returns of former President Donald Trump and his wife Melania show negative income in four of the six years between 2015 and 2020. ​ Getty Images

The release of the returns follows a protracted legal fight that began in April 2019 and went all the way to the Supreme Court.

The panel’s 29-page executive summary also shows that the IRS failed to conduct a mandatory audit of Donald Trump’s tax returns during the 45th president’s first two years in office — skirting a requirement that dates back to 1977 following a controversy over former President Richard Nixon’s taxes.

The IRS only began examining the former president’s individual tax return for 2015 — the year he announced his candidacy — on April 3, 2019, the same day committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) sent a letter to the federal agency seeking information about the returns.

Former President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, reported negative income on four of six years of tax returns between 2015 and 2020. Corbis via Getty Images

More than five months later in September 2019, the report says, the agency selected Trump’s 2016 return for a mandatory audit. The individual returns for 2017, 2018 and 2019 were not selected for examination until after the former president had left office.

The committee released no evidence that Trump that sought to directly influence the IRS or discourage the agency from reviewing his tax information, but its report found problems with the agency’s approach to the audits.

Specifically, IRS agents in charge of the audits repeatedly did not bring in specialists with expertise assessing the complicated structure of Trump’s holdings. They frequently determined that a limited examination was warranted because Trump hired a professional accounting firm that they assumed would make sure Trump “properly reports all income and deduction items correctly.”

“The Committee expected that these mandatory audits were being conducted promptly and in accordance with IRS policies,” Neal said in a statement Tuesday. “We anticipated the IRS would expand the mandatory audit program to account for the complex nature of the former president’s financial situation yet found no evidence of that. This is a major failure of the IRS under the prior administration, and certainly not what we had hoped to find.

“But the evidence is clear,” said Neal. “Congress must step in.”

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a political rally in Georgia on Dec. 5, 2020. Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Previous 1 of 3 Next Advertisement The Trumps reported positive adjusted gross income in only two of those six years — $24.3 million in 2018 and $4.4 million in 2019. During the pandemic in 2020, the Trumps reported a loss of $4.8 million and paid $0 in federal taxes. Advertisement

In response to the committee’s probe, Neal has proposed legislation standardizing the IRS’s approach, requiring an initial report no later than 90 days from the filing of a president’s tax returns. The bill is unlikely to go anywhere with mere days to go before the end of the congressional session and Republicans taking control of the House on Jan. 3.

Trump, 76, who announced last month that he is running for president again in 2024, became the first White House candidate in four decades to refuse to voluntarily disclose his tax returns during his 2016 campaign, citing a supposed audit — even though an audit would not have precluded him from making the returns public.

Trump used the audit excuse again while president, thought it was never clear if he was referring to the mandatory process specifically aimed at presidents or reviews that took place prior to his political career.

In September 2020, The New York Times reported Trump was facing an IRS audit potentially tied to a $72.9 million tax refund arising from $700 million in losses he claimed in 2009. The documents released Tuesday indicate that Trump continued to collect tax benefits from those losses through 2018.

A spokesman for the former president characterized the release of the returns as an “unprecedented leak by lame duck Democrats” in a statement to the Wall Street Journal.

Donald and Melania Trump in August 2015. AFP via Getty Images

“If this injustice can happen to President Trump, it can happen to all Americans without cause,” Steven Cheung told the newspaper, adding that the full release of the returns will reflect Trump’s success as a businessman.

Democratic members of the committee said the release of the returns was necessary for transparency.

“I voted to reinforce this critical principle: No person is above the law, not even a president of the United States,” committee member Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) said.

Neal insisted to reporters the committee’s probe was “about the presidency, not the president.”

But Republicans warned that it could set a dangerous precedent.

Former President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, depart the White House on Dec. 5, 2020. Bloomberg via Getty Images

“Over our objections in opposition, Democrats in the Ways and Means Committee have unleashed a dangerous new political weapon that overturns decades of privacy protections,” Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), the top GOPer on the panel, told reporters.

“The era of political targeting, and of Congress’ enemies list, is back and every American, every American taxpayer, who may get on the wrong side of the majority in Congress is now at risk,” the Texas lawmaker said.

Earlier this month, a​ Manhattan trial jury found the Trump Organization guilty of criminal tax fraud.

Prosecutors said the company helped top executives evade income taxes by providing them off-the-book perks like rent, private school tuition and luxury cars.