Trump’s tax returns spanning six years to be made public within days

Former president Donald Trump’s redacted tax returns are to be made public within days, a House committee has said, in a race against time before the Republicans retake control of the House.

Trump was the first presidential candidate in decades to decline to release his tax filings during either of his campaigns for president.

The House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee confirmed on Tuesday the documents will be released on Friday 30 December.

The Democratic-controlled committee obtained the returns last month as part of an investigation into Trump’s taxes.

It followed a lengthy court battle that culminated in the US Supreme Court ruling in favour of the committee.

In a report on the investigation released last week, the committee accused the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of breaking its own rules by not auditing Trump for three of the four years of his presidency.

Committee members said they held back the tax returns when they published the rest of their findings because they first needed to redact sensitive information.

A spokesperson for the former president declined to comment.

The cache of documents to be published will likely include Trump’s tax returns filed during the years he ran for and served as president, between 2015 and 2020.

Democrats on the committee said publishing the returns was vital to understanding the context of its report, which also included plans to mandate the IRS to audit all presidents.

They raced to decide how to handle the documents after getting their hands on them in November, as Republicans are about to retake control of the House in January, having won a slim victory in November’s midterm elections.