Trump rounds on Supreme Court over tax returns ruling

DONALD TRUMP has accused the US Supreme Court of being politically biased against him after it ruled he must hand his tax returns over to Congress.

The former president has sought to keep his tax returns private for years, and the new ruling is a major setback, coming days after he announced a third run for the White House in 2024.

Mr Trump, who nominated three of the nine justices on the court when he was in office, said: “The Supreme Court has lost its honour, prestige, and standing, and has become nothing more than a political body, with our country paying the price.

“Shame on them!” Meanwhile, in a criminal trial in New York in which the Trump Organisation ‘The Supreme Court has lost its honour, prestige and standing, and has become a political body’ is accused of tax fraud, Donald Bender, an accountant who worked on Mr Trump’s personal tax returns, told the court he had reported losses every year for a decade from 2009 to 2018, including nearly $700million in 2009, and $200million in 2010.

Mr Trump himself is not charged in the case and is not expected to testify or attend the trial.

Mr Bender’s evidence echoed a report by The New York Times in 2020 that said Mr Trump’s tax returns showed he paid no federal income tax in 11 of 18 years it examined, and paid only $750 in 2017, the year that he became president.

This week, a judge set Oct 2 next year as a trial date for a separate civil case in which Mr Trump, three of his adult children and the Trump Organisation have been accused of inflating assets to banks and insurers. The trial will begin close to the start of the primary race for the Republican presidential nomination for the 2024 election.