After all but locking up the Republican nomination, Donald Trump has gone from front runner to presumptive nominee. With the new status comes added pressure, including the constant barrage from the media and the public to release his tax returns.

Trump's taxes

It's become commonplace for a presidential candidate to release their tax returns, providing the American people with a look into their financial history. For Trump, however, he's been able to avoid releasing his financial information, saying that it's "none of your business" when pressed during a recent sit-down interview.

While Trump has been able to get away with not releasing his returns, the Hillary Clinton campaign ran a new ad to highlight what he might be hiding, citing a recently released article as her source.

According to The Washington Post on May 20, the earliest available tax returns for Donald Trump are from 1978 and 1979. The paper cites a report from the New Jersey Casino Control Commission back in 1981 when Trump was forced to submit his returns while putting in an application to obtain a gaming license. In the article, it notes that according to New Jersey state records, "Trump claimed that his combined income in 1978 and 1979 was negative $3.8 million, allowing him to pay no taxes," despite telling The New York Times just a few years earlier that he was worth over $200 million.

Analysts have confirmed that Trump is likely to pay little to no taxes due to using loopholes in the law. Ironically, the loopholes Trump is accused of using, are the same that he's been critical of on the campaign trail. Repeatedly, Trump has criticized corporations of abusing the tax code by shipping jobs overseas, and has even attacked former presidential candidates for not releasing their returns, including 2008 GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

Election outlook

While refusing to release tax returns would normally be a death knell for a presidential candidate, Trump has been able to weather the storm when faced with controversial situations before. When the former host of "The Apprentice" announced his candidacy for president last June, most political pundits and members of the media didn't give him a shot a success.

Fast forward 11 months and Trump is set to become his party's nominee, and head into the general election. A Trump-Clinton match-up is the most likely outcome, and according to the Real Clear Politics most recent rolling average, Trump has narrowed the former Secretary of State's lead down to just four points on a national level.
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