[V]ermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders pledged Tuesday to publicly disclose 10 years of long-promised tax returns by Monday’s annual filing deadline.
“In the very immediate future, certainly before April 15, we release ours,” Sanders told the New York Times in his most committal statement yet on the subject.
Sanders’ announcement comes as he faces rising pressure from national news outlets, political pundits and fellow 2020 presidential candidates to share his returns.
“The Democrats have used their power to say to the IRS, ‘We want to see Donald Trump’s,’” “The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah told Sanders this past week. “People on the right have responded and said, ‘But where’s Bernie’s?’”
The press has asked similar questions through such headlines as CNN’s “Why Is It Taking Bernie Sanders So Long to Release His Taxes?” Fox News’ “Why Doesn’t Bernie Sanders Release His Tax Records?” and MSNBC’s “Bernie’s Taxes: Will We Ever See Them?”
“Sanders is a front-runner, having raised $18.2 million in fundraising in the first quarter of this year,” the Washington Post wrote in a column. “He should act like it, setting an example for the rest of the field.”
Fellow presidential-aspiring U.S. senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren are sharing years of their own records.
“We need transparency and accountability in government,” Gillibrand told reporters while campaigning over the weekend in New Hampshire’s capital city of Concord.
Amid the growing avalanche of inquiries, Sanders has responded up until Tuesday with the same less-than-specific answers.
“April 15th is coming,” he said on “The Daily Show.” “We will make them all public.”
“What’s all?” the host replied.
“Ten years,” Sanders said. “And by the way, I’m delighted to do that, proud to do that. Hey Mr. Trump, you do the same thing.”
But the Vermonter has faced skepticism because of his history of promising more than delivering. Three years ago this month, he was asked the same question while running against Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democratic nomination.
“My wife does our tax returns,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union”. “We have been a little bit busy lately. So, we will get out as much information as we can. There ain’t going to be very much exciting.”
Sanders went on to release his 2014 returns after the close of business April 15, 2016 — that year a Friday night when most reporters had left for the weekend. His disclosure revealed he paid $27,653 in federal taxes on adjusted gross income of $205,271, mostly from his salary as a senator. But the report offered only the bare basics and didn’t match Clinton’s sharing of nearly a decade of records, which Sanders said he would do only if he won the party’s nomination.
That same year, Sanders requested back-to-back extensions to file a presidential campaign personal financial report with the Federal Election Commission, but ultimately didn’t comply after losing to Clinton.
“Since the senator no longer is a candidate,” his spokesman said at the time, “there was no requirement to file.”
Although years have passed, the questions about his tax returns haven’t — especially as Trump dodges the issue by saying he’s under audit even though no law prevents him from sharing anything.
“Soon,” Sanders said when asked Feb. 25 at a CNN town hall. “We have to just do a few more little things.”
“We have it all done,” he added March 31 on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “It’s just a question of dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s.”
“The Daily Show” has speculated on the delay.
“If Bernie hasn’t released them and Trump hasn’t released them, there’s probably secrets on both sides,” Noah told Sanders. “My theory is Trump doesn’t want us to know that he’s not a billionaire, and you don’t want us to know that you are.”
Sanders laughed — but hasn’t voiced much else until Tuesday’s New York Times statement.
The tax delay has perplexed reporters who’ve already chronicled many of Sanders’ assets past his $174,000 annual base congressional salary.
He made at least $1 million in both 2016 and 2017 by penning several best-selling books. He earned a $795,000 advance and at least $306,000 in so-far-reported royalties for his 2016 book “Our Revolution”, a $505,000 advance for his 2018 follow-up “Where We Go from Here,” more than $125,000 in so-far-reported royalties for his 2017 youth title “Bernie Sanders Guide to Political Revolution,” and more than $10,000 in so-far-reported royalties for his recently revised and retitled 1997 memoir “Outsider in the White House.”
Sanders bought a one-bedroom $488,999 brick townhouse in Washington, D.C. in 2007, a four-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath $405,000 home in Chittenden County in 2009 and made People magazine for adding a $575,000 four-bedroom, three-bath Lake Champlain “private getaway” in North Hero in 2016.
But the press still has questions about wife Jane O’Meara Sanders’ reported $200,000 severance package after she resigned in 2011 as president of the since-closed Burlington College, which went on to face a federal investigation in connection with her role in the 2010 purchase of land for a new campus.
Reporters also are seeking answers to who’s behind Old Towne Media LLC, a firm that purchased more than $82 million in 2016 Sanders television ad time — and could have reaped a standard industry commission of 15 percent. The agency’s two principal buyers worked in the past with Jane Sanders, although a VTDigger investigation wasn’t able to unearth much more information.
Supporters fear such inquiries are overshadowing the polling and fundraising success that has turned Sanders into a 2020 frontrunner. A recent column by the self-described “adversarial journalism” website The Intercept spells out all the “hiding something” theories before floating a less conspiratorial thought.
“The truth,” it suggests, “is likely much simpler: By failing to release his tax returns despite repeated promises to do so any minute now, Sanders is being the stubborn curmudgeon he’s always been.”
