“I don’t mind releasing. I’m under a routine audit, and it’ll be released.”
–Donald Trump

THE FACT CHECKER | Trump cites an Internal Revenue Service audit as his justification for not releasing his federal income tax returns, butt the audit does not prohibit from releasing the returns. Richard Nixon, who started the tradition of presidents and presidential candidates releasing their returns, did so in the middle of an audit.

Moreover, Trump has not released his tax returns from before 2009, which are no longer under audit, according to his attorney.

Presidential candidates have no legal obligation to release their returns, but there has long been a tradition to do so for the sake of transparency. Hillary Clinton has released three decades’ worth of tax returns.

While Trump has not released the returns, his long history of litigation has given the public a sense of what is in his returns. Tax information made public so far show Trump did not pay any, or nearly any, income taxes at least five times in the past 40 years.