Donald Trump, President of the United States, controversially refused to release his tax returns after being elected president the first time in 2016, although he promised to do so during his campaign. In 2021, the Manhattan district attorney (DA) obtained several years of Trump's tax information, and in late 2022, the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee obtained and released six years of his returns.

Trump repeatedly and falsely claimed that he could not release the returns while they were under audit by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). After Democrats won a majority in the House of Representatives in 2018, Trump sued to prevent his returns from being released by the IRS or his accountants, which were being sought by certain state officials and congressional committees. The Manhattan DA's request for records as part of its criminal probe of the Trump Organization (regarding a hush-money payment made during the 2016 presidential campaign and alleged tax fraud) was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, resulting in a 2020 decision rejecting Trump's claims that the president holds absolute immunity from criminal process. In February 2021, Trump's accounting firm Mazars provided the DA eight years of Trump's tax returns.

In May 2019, Ways and Means Committee chair Richard Neal requested six years of Trump's tax records; after appeals were exhausted, he received the documents on November 30, 2022. Four weeks later, the committee voted 24–16 along party lines to release the returns to the public, which was done on December 30. The committee found that the IRS failed to audit Trump's taxes during the first two years of his presidency, and that the only audit conducted during his tenure was never completed.

In 2019, the U.S. House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Mazars for tax and other records related to an investigation into Trump's conduct; an appeal to the Supreme Court resulted in a decision outlining circumstances Congress can request presidential records without violating separation of powers. Also in 2019, California temporarily enacted legislation to require presidential candidates to release tax returns to be allowed on the primary election ballot, and New York State passed a law allowing the release of state tax returns to congressional committees for valid purposes.

In 1999, while Donald Trump was considering whether to run for president under the Reform Party, he said "probably wouldn't have a problem with" releasing his tax returns if he ran.

In April 2011, Trump said that when President Barack Obama produced "his birth certificate ... I'd love to give my tax returns." Obama's birth certificate was released a week later, resulting in Trump's saying his tax returns would be released "at the appropriate time".

An undocumented immigrant housekeeper from Costa Rica working at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, earned $26,792.90 and paid more in federal income taxes than Trump did ($0) in 2011.

In 2012, Trump sought to have Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's tax returns released on April 1, which "historically is the time that everybody gives them". That year, Trump also said that not seeing a presidential candidate's tax returns would lead people to think there was "almost, like, something wrong. What's wrong?"