House Panel Votes To Make Trump's Tax Returns Public

The House Ways and Means Committee voted Tuesday to publicly release former President Donald Trump's tax returns, ending a multiyear effort by congressional Democrats to shed light on Trump's business dealings just weeks before Republicans take over committee leadership in January.The panel voted 24-16 on party lines to send the full House reports from the Ways and Means Committee and the Joint Committee on Taxation.

​The committee's action makes public six years of Trump's individual federal tax returns and returns for eight of his businesses. Democrats said the reports would shed light on the Internal Revenue Service's presidential audit program. 

Lawmakers were granted access to the returns late last month after the U.S. Supreme Court said it wouldn't block the Democratic-led House of Representatives committee from obtaining Trump's tax returns for 2015 through 2020. Democrats have said the tax returns are essential to evaluating whether the IRS appropriately conducted its audit of the former president. 

The committee's vote comes just a day after a separate House panel investigating the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol voted unanimously to refer Trump to the U.S. Department of Justice for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Committee Republicans, who have also requested and been granted access to the tax returns, said the committee's decision will lead to Congress targeting political enemies by using their tax returns.