WASHINGTON — (CNN) House Speaker Paul Ryan said he believes presidential candidates should disclose their tax records, but deferred Donald Trump’s preference on timing on when to put them out.
“I released mine. I think we should release our returns, I’ll leave it to him when to do it,” Ryan, who was the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2012, told reporters at his weekly news conference on Capitol Hill.
Trump has pledged to reveal his returns, but cited advice from financial advisers not to do so until an audit for some previous years filings by the Internal Revenue Service is complete.
Democrats and some Republicans continue to press the businessman for greater transparency on the issue.
Donald Trump Jr. offered a different reason for not releasing the records: The public would scrutinize them.
“Because he’s got a 12,000-page tax return that would create … financial auditors out of every person in the country asking questions that would detract from (his father’s) main message,” Trump, Jr. told the Tribune-
Review in Pennsylvania in a piece published Wednesday.
Senate Democrats pounced on the issue Thursday.
They attempted to force a vote on new legislation that would require Trump and other future presidential candidates to release their returns after accepting their party’s nomination for the White House, but Republicans objected.
Questions about Trump’s taxes only increased last week after Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, released 10 years of his returns, which is standard for most candidates for national office.
As the governor of Indiana, Pence’s returns were fairly simple.
But Trump, who regularly boasts about his multiple businesses, faces questions about whether he claims the same net worth to the IRS that he does in public and how much he pays in taxes.
Ryan noted Trump’s argument for holding back now, saying: “I know he’s under an audit and he’s got an opinion about when to release those and ‘ll defer to him on that.”
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