“I will really gladly give them. When the audit ends, I’ll present them. That should be before the election.”

the presidential signatures are missing from their tax returns — ripped off and stolen, apparently, as souvenirs.

As of 1997, every presidential tax return ever filed amounted to a stack of paper about 5 feet deep.

With Trump, the IRS may need to find more room.

In a tweet last year, Trump posted a photo of him signing what he said was a recent tax return, with paper stacked more than 3 feet high. “Isn’t this ridiculous?” he wrote.

As recently as 2015, Trump promised he would release his returns. But beginning last year, he started to add a qualifier. “I will really gladly give them. When the audit ends, I’ll present them. That should be before the election,” he told ABC News last May.

He never did — nor had he released prior-year returns no longer under audit.

While Democrats, watchdog groups and news organizations have sought his returns so they could examine them for conflicts of interest, tax experts say there’s another important reason to release them. donating his vice presidential papers back to the government, according to tax returns obtained by the Tax History Project. And in 1971 and 1972, he paid less than $900 in taxes each year on income of more than $262,000. The IRS signed off on those returns, but the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation later determined that Nixon owed $476,451 in back taxes and interest. Nixon agreed to pay $465,000.

Since then, most presidents have released their tax returns shortly after filing them — usually on the Friday night before April 15, when they’re less likely to get much attention.

Trump has not yet said whether he’ll release his returns this year.

“Again, we’ll cross that bridge when it comes to it,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said last month. “But the president has been very clear throughout the campaign and consistent that he’s under a routine audit.”

But will that position change now that Trump is president? “I don’t know,” Spicer said. “I’m worried about getting my own (taxes) done.”