Quote:I will trust the professionals on this. Not the keyboard warriors.

 

Lester Weingarten, New York City based accountant:

 

“If his return is under audit, I would advise not to release it to the public as there could be an embarrassing upward adjustment or they could “bless” the return by not making any changes which would be an affirmation of the accuracy of the return (or they could make a highly unlikely downward adjustment).  Either way, it would not be beneficial to release the return until all was settled.    If the return was not under audit, then it is up to him what he wanted to do, but given it is under examination, it would be prudent to wait until the examination has been concluded.

 

As far as releasing prior years taxes, each year stands on its own.  However there could be carry forwards of certain items to the most recent year filed (i.e. 2014).  Generally these items would include but are not limited to capital loss carry forwards; net operating loss carry forwards; Investment interest expense carry forwards, passive loss carry forwards, foreign tax credit carry forwards.  Given Mr. Trump’s wealth, the most likely carry forwards would be passive loss carry forwards on partnership investments that throw off losses that cannot be used currently as they are deemed passive activities.  However we are getting too technical.

 

As Mr. Trump stated, he has been audited year after year, presumably the audits on prior years have been concluded, therefore those returns, if he so chose, could be released and as stated above, if there was an upward adjustment, an embarrassment, if there was a “no change”, an affirmation.  He might have a few years where the audit has not been concluded, so as above, I would recommend they not be released. ”