In his first year as president, Trump paid $750 in federal income tax

Olaf Scholz' tax return? The various tax returns of Gerhard Schröder? Angela Merkel's documents on her tax payments, additional income, real estate, donations? And even the corresponding data from Merkel's husband Joachim Sauer?

What is considered unthinkable in Germany is common in the USA. Almost anyway. Every president of the past decades made and makes his tax returns public. Candidates for the highest office of state think so too. That was the tradition. Until Donald Trump came along.

The former president, real estate mogul and failed casino operator withheld his tax returns from the public before, during and after his tenure. He fought tooth and nail against making the relevant documents accessible.

The supporters who were loyal to him and the Republican Party, which was obedient to him, forgive him. Some even admired him for breaking the rules. As is so often the case, Trump held it differently from Reagan, the two Bushes, Clinton, Obama and Biden.

By the way, Joe Biden has been publishing his tax returns for 24 years. According to his most recent tax return, the President and First Lady report adjusted gross income of $610,702. They paid $150,439 in federal income tax, a rate of 24.6 percent. Joe and Jill Biden donated a total of $17,394 to ten different charities.

Donald Trump's tax returns have also been public since this Friday, at least for the years 2015 to 2020 - albeit not on a voluntary basis.

The disclosure came in an unprecedented way. The House Finance Committee released a report on Trump's filing after passing a resolution last week.

The timing of the decision is piquant: the new congress will be constituted on Tuesday. As a result, the Democrats will lose their majorities in the House of Representatives and its Finance Committee. The Democrats single-handedly pushed through the publication of the Trump papers against the Republicans.

Trump, who likes to boast of hefty (largely inherited) wealth, has paid little or no federal income tax for several years. Depreciation made it possible.

But since every American can now see the documents in black and white, Trump's tax avoidance strategies gain political explosiveness.

Especially since the 76-year-old wants to become president again – even if his previous campaign hasn’t really caught on. The recent disclosure is another setback for Trump.

The road to the publication of the tax returns was long and rocky. Just last week, the conservative-dominated Supreme Court rejected Trump's efforts to deny the Democrat-controlled Finance Committee access to these documents.

After the Supreme Court gave the go-ahead, the IRS made the extensive material available to the Finance Committee. The committee had requested the documents since 2019, i.e. during Trump’s presidency. The committee fought for four years. Well, just before the change of power to the Republicans, he achieved this success.

Presidents are not “ordinary taxpayers,” says Democrat and Treasury Committee Chairman Richard Neal: “With great power comes greater responsibility.”

The committee had already published a report on the Trump case in mid-December. Accordingly, the IRS missed the mandatory audits Trump during the first two years of his tenure.

According to the report, Trump benefited from the huge tax cuts for the super-rich that he pushed through as president. According to the report, Trump paid a combined $1.1 million in federal income taxes in his first three years in the White House. In 2020 he stopped paying taxes.

Trump paid $750 in federal income tax in his first year as president. Almost every McDonald's employee, every Amazon supplier is likely to have paid far more taxes than the US President and real estate mogul.

Trump himself was initially silent on Friday about the publications. On his Truth Social network, he recently returned to his favorite topic, the "falsified and manipulated" 2020 presidential election.