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Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance.
Six years of Donald Trump's tax returns were released to the public by the House Ways and Means Committee.
The Democratic-run committee was able to obtain Trump's returns after the Supreme Court declined to back Trump's attempts to block their release. Every other major party candidate for decades has released their tax returns, but Donald Trump refused to do so during the 2016 presidential campaign.
From the start of his presidential run through the end of his White House term, the committee released Trump's personal and business returns. The thousands of pages included in the returns shed more light on how Trump took advantage of the tax code to pay little or no taxes. He made money from investments in more than a dozen foreign countries, including China, India and Mexico.
Information that hadn't previously been known about Trump's financial situation was given in the release. The committee showed that the IRS didn't start auditing Trump's finances until his third year in office, revealing his main explanation for why he couldn't release his returns to be a lie.
With no obvious "smoking guns" indicating clear illegal activity and the general picture of Trump's finances already well known, debate has sprung up about what value, if any, there was in releasing his returns to the public.
It is important for the American people to have a clear picture of Trump's finances so they can understand how his massive business empire may have influenced his actions as president, and may do so again if he is reelected. Some tax experts say the returns themselves include a number of questionable elements that could lead to criminal tax fraud once more time is taken to untangle Trump's complex business ties. The decision to release the returns is seen as a sign that no one can expect to keep their finances secret if they want to be the most powerful person in the nation.
The release could prompt Congress to pass legislation making financial disclosures a legal requirement for presidential candidates or inspire an inquiry into potential corruption within the IRS in how it handled Trump's taxes.
Some political figures outside of the president's former circle worry that the disclosure will cause a dangerous back and forth in which Congress will release the financial information of their rivals out of spite.
With Republicans taking over the House of Representatives this week, it's all but certain that the Ways and Means Committee won't be looking for any more of Trump's financial information. It is not known if the Democrats in the Senate will take up the task of looking into Trump's returns.
We didn't know there wasn't anything in the returns.
The tax returns are supposed to be secret. I felt dirty and sad when I read tax returns forcibly from any taxpayer. There is no smoking gun that will get Trump.
The returns are the beginning of an inquiry into Trump's finances.
The income information included in the analysis seems to support the idea that Trump used the presidency to steer business to himself and those who wanted to influence it.
Tax returns could be used in partisan politics.
It seems likely that posting Trump's taxes will result in other people posting their own. Will we be able to see Hunter Biden's tax returns on the internet? Nicholas Goldberg of the Los Angeles Times said that it will give Republicans some basis for saying that Democrats go low when other people go high.
Trump put his own interests ahead of those of the American people.
It will be a reminder of the extent to which the former president played a shell game with his wealth and business interests while in power, and what he may try to get away with again if he occupies the Oval Office in the future.
The only reason to release Trump's returns was to hurt him politically.
Mr. Trump seems to have hired legions of lawyers to close tax loopholes. The code can be simplified if Congress doesn't like it.
IRS corruption needs to be thoroughly investigated.
There is growing evidence that Trump used political pressure and appointments of loyalists to block IRS auditors from doing their job. It would be unsurprising if that is the case. It would mean that someone may have broken the law at Trump's direction.
A full picture of Trump's finances was not released by the committee.
The result isn't good. It is an important principle to follow as a matter of history. It would have been a warning to any future presidents who might want to keep their tax returns private.
There is evidence that could lead to criminal activity.
Even if some of it was previously teased by the committee, the dump contains a cornucopia of information that affects your wallet.
Making the records public did not serve any purpose.
There was a valid reason for the committee to look at Trump's returns. There wasn't a fight there. They had a valid reason to publish his returns. I don't believe it.
It is important that there is transparency.
The presidency has the potential to be corrupt. We need to know where presidents get their income, who they owe money to, and what their finances are like.
Trump's reputation as a successful businessman was undermined by the large losses he reported.
As an outsider candidate, part of Trump's appeal was based on his perception of his private sector skills. Friday's disclosures raise questions about his carefully-cultivated image as a savvy business magnate.
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The Washington Post has a photo illustration by Jack Forbes.
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