Trump sues the IRS: demands $10 billion in compensation for leaked tax returns

President Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against the US Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). У lawsuits he is demanding $10 billion in compensation for the unauthorized disclosure of his tax returns to the press during his first term as president from 2018 to 2020.

Trump's sons also appear as plaintiffs in the case: Eric and Donald Trump Jr. and the Trump Organization, the company that manages the US president's real estate.

Trump's lawsuit claims that the release of information to the "left-wing media" caused "reputational and financial damage and public humiliation" and "unfairly tarnished their business reputation."

A few weeks before the 2020 presidential election, The New York Times published a sensational report on Trump's tax returns based on an IRS leak.

According to the New York Times, data from the US Internal Revenue Service showed that Trump, who lost the election Joe Biden 2020, paid $750 in federal income tax in 2016 and 2017, and paid no taxes in ten of the previous 15 years due to large losses that offset any profits.

The Times report said that many of Trump's businesses were struggling because the president was putting more money into them than he was taking out, and that he had made millions abroad during his first term in the White House.

At the time, Trump called these reports "absolutely fake news."

Former IRS employee Charles Littlejohn pleaded guilty in 2023 to stealing Trump's tax data and leaking it to the Times newspaper. He also stole the tax returns of thousands of other wealthy Americans, including Ken Griffin, Elon Musk і Jeff Bezos, which he passed on to ProPublica.

In 2024, Littlejohn was sentenced to five years in prison for violating Art. 6103 of the US Tax Code.

This lawsuit adds to a series of lawsuits initiated by Trump or his sprawling real estate empire over the past year, notes Bloomberg. They targeted news outlets and banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. which Trump sued last week.

The total amount of compensation required in all cases now exceeds $50 billion.

• Trump accused JPMorgan and Capital One Financial Corp. of illegally "de-banking" him or his real estate business for political reasons. He has also filed defamation lawsuits v. New York Times, Wall Street Journal і British Broadcasting Corporation BBCthe lawyers deny any wrongdoing.
• Trump's lawsuits against TV companies ABC і CBS were settled for a total amount of $31 million.