So here’s the thing. Your tax return doesn’t just magically appear as the result of some alchemy between you and the IRS...it is actually your responsibility to ensure that, to the best of your knowledge, all of the information contained in the return is, you know, true. This happens when you submit your return to the IRS, which, by definition, is before your return can be audited.
What you promise when you sign your return under penalty of perjury is that the numbers on the return are materially accurate.
So what Trump is saying he cannot share with the voting public is a document that, by definition, and under penalty of perjury on his part, he has attested, by signing the document, is true and accurate.
Tax returns are not like baking. The return you sign and send in to the taxing authorities is not just the first ingredient which, after an audit, turns into tax-return cake. The return you sign (*under penalty of perjury*) and send in is the actual cake! It’s baked. During an audit the IRS basically says, “hm, this cake is OK” (or, possibly, “you forgot to properly amortize your intangible assets before sifting them into the confectioners sugar for the icing”). But the return you sign is supposed to represent what you believe to be the truth.
Here, Donald Trump, let me put it into a metaphor that you can understand. Say you hire an architect to design a building for you. The architect comes up with a design, and gives you the blueprint set and the specs. In this metaphor, the architect is you, and you, Donald Trump, are the IRS. Say you and the architect get in a big fight after the architect gives you the construction document set (perhaps you stiffed the architect — refused to pay what you’d said you’d pay for). At any rate, the architect (remember, in this metaphor, you are the architect) thinks he (or she — but let’s face it, it’s probably “he”) has a complete building design. But you (in this metaphor, you are the IRS) thinks the building design could do with some changes. More gold paint! Cheaper marble! Even *more* gold paint! Even cheaper finish-out in 95% of the building! When the building is finally built, parts are from the architect’s original design, but your (the IRS’s) modifications overlay that design. But signing off on your crappy modifications of the architect’s original design is the only way the architect will get any part of the money you still owe him. So he signs off, but he takes his name off the building and he never puts it on his web-page, and when ever he thinks about it, he weeps into his scotch (no ice). So that is what happens at the end of an IRS audit. You cut a deal. You still think that your position was defensible, but you compromise so that you can go on to the next year of tax returns, and the IRS can go on to the next audit. But you signed your name to that first return you submitted. You said that it was all true.
For there to be an audit changes nothing about what Trump swore (*UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY*) to be true and accurate in all material respects.
For him to say that he can’t share his returns because there is an audit is like saying he can’t share them because the pet store is out of chew toys in the shape of Richard Nixon’s head. It’s like saying that he can’t share them because Melania is redecorating the floor where young Barron Trump keeps his collection of life-size, endangered-African-wildlife-theme stuffed animals. It’s like saying he cant share his returns because the IRS recently finalized regulations dealing with partial asset dispositions.
It’s making a connection between two things that don’t have a causal relationship at all.
So, if, by signing his tax returns, Donald Trump was saying that they were true:
Why can’t he release them to the voting public?
Why can’t he tell us the truth?
“I can’t share my tax returns because it’s an even-number year” would work as well as the lame audit excuse.