Fact Check: Donald Trump Can’t Release His Taxes While Being Audited?

Donald Trump is sticking to his new explanation for why he can’t yet release copies of his recent tax returns: The IRS is auditing him, as Trump says it has for the past 12 years.

He mentioned this Thursday during CNN’s republican debate.

“I’m just going to put you people to rest: Until my audit is finished, very simple, you are not going to see anything”, he said.

“I will lend my support between now and November every way that I can for Donald to make the campaign an even better campaign than it’s already been”, said Gov. Christie on Friday.

“Well, maybe because of the fact that I’m a strong Christian, and I feel strongly about it and maybe there’s a bias”, Trump said.

But tax lawyer Steven Goldburd told the Washington Post that while Trump is not prevented from releasing his tax returns it would be advisable for him not to do so.

Trump suggested that releasing his returns now would compromise his negotiating position with the IRS. From this angle, Goldburd’s also correct, as no legal counsel worth his salt would recommend making public any additional information unnecessarily during an ongoing investigation, particularly if it’s potentially unflattering.

There’s not, says the IRS.

Maybe Trump will release his returns, maybe he won’t. “The IRS stresses that audits of tax returns are based on the information contained on the taxpayer’s return and the underlying tax law – nothing else”, the statement continued. Trump responded on stage, saying, “you don’t learn anything from a tax return”.

Much more common are regular audits of companies. Trump scoffed at Romney’s suggestion.

Both experts agree that Trump’s claim about being audited every year is entirely within the realm of possibility. Trump again expressed his frustration at being singled out.

Trump said he has filed financial statements showing that he is worth more than $10 billion, and that voters can find out more about his finances from those statements than they can from tax returns.

However, Americans have come to expect that presidential candidates will disclose their returns, said Joseph Thorndike, director of the Tax History Project at Tax Analysts, a leading provider of tax news and analysis.

As for the Democratic candidates, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released eight years of tax returns, dating from 2007 to 2014, in July. Of course those ugly jealous nerds at the Internal Revenue Service want to get a piece of Trump.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz pointed out that he made public five years of returns when he was running for U.S. Senate, and was set to release two more years. Marco Rubio said he would be releasing his returns either Friday or Saturday, while Sen.

And Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders made $205,271 in gross income in 2014, according to excerpts from released tax returns.