Trump on Sunday reprised his long-held argument that he can’t release his taxes because he’s under audit by the IRS, an agency he claimed treats him “very badly.” But the president said he would be “proud to show” his tax returns once the audit was over, and insisted that he’d paid “a lot” of money in taxes, including New York state income taxes.

“It’ll all be revealed,” Trump said. “It’s gonna come out — but after the audit.”

“The story,” he added, “is a total fake.”

Former IRS officials, however, have disputed Trump’s claim and said there‘s nothing stopping the president from releasing his taxes during an audit.

“From our standpoint, if you’re being audited, and you want to do something else, share that information with your returns, you can do that,” then-IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said in 2016.

The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), who has taken his fight for access to six years‘ worth of Trump’s tax returns to the Supreme Court, responded to the reporting on Sunday evening, saying Trump “gamed the tax code to his advantage.“

“This reporting shines a stark light on the vastly different experience people with power and influence have when interacting with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) than the average American taxpayer does,“ Neal said in a statement. “Our case is very strong, and we will ultimately prevail.“

Source:politico.com