Trump immunity from IRS audit shocks experts, who warn it could undermine trust in tax system [View all]

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https://apnews.com/article/trump-justice-department-irs-tax-audits-7ba4781b9b9bef99873151df6bfc33ab

Trump immunity from IRS audit shocks experts, who warn it could undermine trust in tax system
By BERNARD CONDON and FATIMA HUSSEIN
Updated 5:06 AM CDT, May 22, 2026

NEW YORK (AP) — Remember Donald Trump’s response in the 2016 presidential debate, when Hillary Clinton blasted him for paying virtually no federal taxes?

“That makes me smart,” Trump said.

By that logic, Trump is looking smarter than ever now.

On Tuesday, the Internal Revenue Service agreed to drop all pending probes of Trump over whether he’s paid his fair share of taxes, to settle a lawsuit brought by the president over a leak of his tax returns. That could include, assuming it was ongoing, a long-standing audit into a technique Trump reportedly used to avoid paying taxes years ago that could have hit him with an estimated $100 million bill if the IRS found wrongdoing.

Details of IRS audits are not public and the merits of each side’s arguments are impossible to tell. But the way the president’s case against his own government’s IRS was resolved is highly unusual, experts say.

Trump sued the IRS, a federal agency within his administration, putting him in the unusual position of challenging an agency overseen by the executive branch he leads — a rare move, experts say, and possibly unprecedented. Then that agency decided, in another unusual move, to grant him immunity.

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In Trumpworld, only peasants pay taxes