Donald Trump: My tax rate is "none of your business"
On the heels of recent calls for Donald Trump to release his tax returns, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is standing firm in his position that he would not make the documents public before an IRS audit is complete.
When ABC News' George Stephanopoulos asked Trump Friday whether he felt voters had a right to see his tax returns before November, Trump responded: "I don't think they do."
He went on to say that he would "really gladly give them" but that his taxes were currently undergoing a "routine audit."
"That should be before the election," Trump added. "I hope it's before the election."
The New York business mogul said that the American people "will learn nothing" from the documents that hasn't already been gleaned from other financial statements.
"I put in financials -- 100 pages worth of financials -- that show that I built a company that's worth more than $10 billion," he told ABC. "It shows cash. It shows cash flows. It shows everything."
When Stephanopoulos pointed out that voters could find out how much in taxes Trump paid or whether he had any offshore bank accounts, the GOP nominee was quick to shoot down the speculation.
"I'll tell you right now, I do not. I do not have Swiss bank accounts," he said. "I don't have offshore -- I really have a very, very clean company and believe me, if I didn't, it would have been reported by 200 groups."
Asked what is tax rate was, Trump replied: "It's none of your business."
"You'll see it when I release but I fight very hard to pay as little tax as possible," he said, noting that it was because "this country wastes our money."
While every presidential nominee since 1976 has released their tax returns, Trump said that before 1976, it was a "secret thing."
In the wide-ranging ABC interview, Trump also weighed in on the latest White House guidelines to public schools, which instructed that schools should allow transgender students to use the bathroom and locker facilities that correspond with their gender identity.
Trump said it should be left up to individual states to decide how to handle transgender bathroom access.
"I believe it should be states' rights and I think the state should make the decision," Trump said. "They're more capable of making the decision. I felt that from the beginning."
Trump, who proposed earlier this week to set up a commission to examine radical Islamic terrorism and his suggestion to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the U.S., also elaborated more on his panel plans during another interview with Fox News.
Trump told Fox on Friday that the commission will include a "really stellar group of people" (which has yet to be assembled) and will be chaired by former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani.
When asked whether it would focus solely on Muslim immigration, Trump replied: "Muslim but I also want him to take a look at the southern border...Rudy will be the chairman and he should be able to come back - you know, he moves quickly. He should be able to come back quickly."