The Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives, the lower house of the US Congress, voted on Tuesday to release Donald Trump's tax returns.

It is a blow for the former president who has for years kept his returns secret.

The Democratic-controlled committee had access to tax returns from Trump and some of his businesses after winning a lengthy legal battle.

Last month the US Supreme Court rejected Trump's final bid to prevent the Treasury Department from releasing six years of tax returns, which the committee has been seeking since 2019.

Trump has dismissed the committee's search for his taxes as politically motivated.

Battle years in the making

As a presidential candidate in 2016 Trump broke with a decades-long tradition by not releasing his tax returns.

In 2019, after Democrats retook the House majority, they said they wanted to perform oversight of the Internal Revenue Service's audit program as well as tax law compliance by the former Republican president.

The Treasury Department had refused to provide the records and the case was dragged through the courts until last month's Supreme court decision.

It is not clear whether the tax returns will contain major new revelations as The New York Times reported in 2020 that Trump paid just $750 (€644) in federal income taxes in 2016, the year he ran for president and in 2017, his first year in the White House.

According to the paper, he also paid no federal income taxes for years because he reported losing more money than he made.

Trump's legal woes

Tuesday's decision to release the record came only weeks before Republicans take control of the committee, along with the full House.

Republicans are expected to dissolve or redirect that panel when they take control of the chamber.

The release of any financial details could however lead to more unwelcome scrutiny for Trump as he seeks the Republican nomination to run for the White House again in 2024.

The decision follows another by the House select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol that on Monday voted unanimously to refer four criminal charges including insurrection against Trump to the Justice Department.

Earlier this month, the Trump Organization was convicted on tax fraud charges for helping some executives dodge taxes.

He also faces a separate fraud suit in New York that accuses him of artificially inflating the value of his assets.

lo/ar, es (AP, Reuters)