tdsrnest wrote:
Not when you become President of the United States it is our business or why would every president since Nixon release there tax returns. I want to know if Trump has a business relationship with foreign powers that could affect his judgment. I want to know who is loaning him money outside the US. Let's look at what China he owes Bank of China $365 million and all of a sudden China is no longer a Currency manipulator and his daughter gets a pattern in China on her clothing line.
"[E]very president since Nixon". Well, not quite but we'll get to that in a minute. So, including Nixon, a total of seven Presidents have released their tax returns for general perusal. Right? Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but if Nixon was the 37th President, then there were 36 Presidents before him who did not release their taxes for popular perusal, right? Why not? If seven Presidents can release their tax data, why did another 36 fail to do so?
Fact is, Nixon felt obliged to release his IRS tax forms because he felt the need to try and prove to the American people that he was not 'up to no good':
"In 1973, while under audit and amid a controversy over his personal taxes, Nixon released returns dating back to when he took office in 1969. The scandal led to one of Nixon's most famous quotes:
"People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook," Nixon told reporters in November 1973. "Well, I am not a crook." That was a really, really big deal at the time.
Nixon holds the distinction of being the first and only US President to have resigned his office in order to avoid certain impeachment and Senate trial.
Oh, and the only other President since Nixon to decline to release his IRS tax forms? Nixon's Vice President, who became President when Nixon resigned, Gerald Ford. Ford instead made public a decade's worth of summary data about his federal taxes. Does that make him a crook too?
So there it is. The 'tradition' of releasing tax forms to the public was started by a crook 44 years ago and is perpetuated by a nosy bunch of busybodies who have the chutzpah to say to an elected President "prove you're not a crook". If I were in president Trump's shoes, I'd refuse as well. Just because I can, and it drives them crazy.