WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 (UPI) — House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday said Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump should release his tax returns, a bipartisan tradition in political campaigns over the last three-plus decades.
Trump has thus far declined to release his taxes, citing an ongoing multi-year audit by the IRS. Trump said his lawyers have advised him to wait until after the audit, which has been ongoing for years, is completed before making the documents public.
“I did release my returns,” Ryan said of his 2012 candidacy as the GOP’s vice presidential nominee. “I’ll defer to Donald Trump as to when he thinks the appropriate time to release his returns. I know he is under audit, and he has an opinion on when to release those and I’ll defer to him on that.
“I released mine. I think he should release his. I’ll leave it to him when to do it,” Ryan said.
There is no law requiring presidential candidates to release their tax returns, though every major party nominee has done so for at least the last 30 years. Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, has posted the past seven years of her taxes on her campaign website and her family’s taxes have been made public for the past 30 years, including the eight years her husband Bill Clinton was president.
