title: Sagar Mala project

text: As of 31-Mar-2018, a total of 492 projects () were under various stages of implementation, development and completion.


title: Sagar Mala project

text: As of 2021, only 172 projects out of the 802 sanctioned have been completed and the remaining 632 projects are under the implementation stage. Of these, only 13 out of 98 road connectivity projects to ports have been completed and 28 out of 91 rail connectivity projects.


title: Sagar Mala project

text: Since about more than 90% of India's trade by volume is conducted via the country's maritime route, there is a continuous need to develop India's ports and trade-related infrastructure to accelerate growth in the manufacturing industry and to assist the 'Make in India' initiative. India has 12 major ports and approximately 200 non-major ports administered by Central and State Governments respectively.


title: Sagar Mala project

text: As per the studies conducted under the Sagarmala Programme, it is expected that by 2025, cargo traffic at Indian ports will be approximately 2500 million tonnes per year while the current cargo handling capacity of Indian ports is only 1500 million tonnes per year. A roadmap has been prepared for increasing the Indian port capacity to over 3500 million tonnes per year by 2025 to cater to the growing traffic. This includes port operational efficiency improvement, capacity expansion of existing ports and new port development.


title: Sagar Mala project

text: Under Project Unnati, the global benchmarks were adopted to improve the efficiency and productivity KPIs for 12 major ports. Around 116 initiatives were identified across 12 major ports to unlock more than 100 MTPA capacity just through efficiency improvement. Out of which, 86 initiatives have been implemented to unlock around 80 MTPA capacity.


title: Sagar Mala project

text: Coastal Economic Zones (CEZ) is an important component of the Sagarmala Programme aimed at port-led industrial development of 14 business-friendly Coastal Economic Zones (CEZ) with the investment of , centered around ports in India spread across national coastline of 7,500 km, by using Make in India indigenous manufacturing scheme. Sectors targeted for manufacturing units are maritime and inland waterways, water transport, coastal and cruise shipping, and solar and wind energy generation, auto, telecom and IT, etc. Each CEZ will cover economic region consisting of several coastal districts with strong linkage to the ports in that region. Each CEZs will also create synergy with industrial corridors passing through the region, such as Delhi–Mumbai Industrial Corridor Project, Mumbai-Bangalore economic corridor, Dedicated Freight Corridor, Chennai Bangalore Industrial Corridor, Visakhapatnam–Chennai Industrial Corridor and Amritsar Delhi Kolkata Industrial Corridor, etc.


title: Sagar Mala project

text: Each CEZ will have several Coastal Economic Units (CEU), and in turn each CEU will have several Port-Linked Industrial Clusters (PLIC). "Coastal Employment Units" (CEUs) serve as nodes within CEZ, each CEU industrial is an industrial estates with multiple industries. Each "Port-Linked Industrial Clusters" (PLIC) within CEU will have several manufacturing units.


title: Sagar Mala project

text: Benefits include national GDP growth with ease of doing business by boosting export by US$100 billion, 150,000 job creation by 2025, reduction in export cargo logistics cost and time, and increased global competitiveness of Indian exports.


title: Sagar Mala project

text: Of the 51, port connectivity rail projects, 11 projects are already complete and rest are under execution.


title: Sagar Mala project

text: In November 2017, with the development of first Special Economic Zone centered around the busiest cargo ports in India that handles 40% of India's export-import volume, Jawaharlal Nehru Port east of Mumbai, was initiated. Several large companies from telecom, auto and IT sectors are expected to bid for the 200 hectares of export-oriented manufacturing units in the SEZ to reduce export logistics cost, thus also generating direct jobs by infusing new technology, investment and world's best management practices.


title: Sagar Mala project

text: Further, development of Smart Industrial Port City (SIPC) at Paradip and at Kandla ports and Coastal Employment Units (CEUs) at V.O. Chaidambarnar Port Trust and Kamarajar Port Limited is under progress.


title: Sagar Mala project

text: Under Sagarmala Programme, the endeavor is to provide enhanced connectivity between the ports and the domestic production/consumption centres. More than 210 connectivity projects have been identified. Some of the types of connectivity projects considered are listed below:


title: Sagar Mala project

text: Sagarmala Programme in coordination with related Central Ministries and State Governments would fund capacity building, infrastructure, and social development projects related to value addition in fisheries, aquaculture and cold chain development. As part of the coastal community development component of the Sagarmala Programme, Ministry is part-funding fishing harbour projects in convergence with Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying (DADF).


title: Sagar Mala project

text: For promoting tourism in maritime states under Sagarmala, projects have been identified in convergence with Ministry of Tourism and tourism development departments of maritime state governments. Key coastal tourism projects include:


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: The South Lebanon conflict, designated by Israel as the Security Zone in Lebanon Campaign, was a protracted armed conflict that took place in southern Lebanon from 1985 to 2000. It saw fighting between the Christian-dominated South Lebanon Army (SLA) and Hezbollah-led Muslim guerrillas within the Israeli-occupied "Security Zone"; the SLA had military and logistical support from the Israel Defense Forces over the course of the conflict and operated under the jurisdiction of the Israeli-backed South Lebanon provisional administration, which succeeded the earlier Israeli-backed State of Free Lebanon. It can also refer to the continuation of the earlier conflict in this region that began with the Palestinian insurgency in southern Lebanon, which targeted Christian Lebanese factions and Israel following the expulsion of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from Jordan after Black September. Historical tensions between Palestinian refugees and Lebanese factions fomented the violent internal political struggle between the latter. In light of these factors, the South Lebanon conflict can be seen as a part of the Lebanese Civil War.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: In earlier conflicts prior to the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, including the 1978 South Lebanon conflict, Israel attempted to eradicate PLO bases from Lebanon and provided support to Maronite Christian militias in the country amidst the Lebanese Civil War; the 1982 invasion resulted in the PLO's departure from Lebanon. Israel's subsequent establishment of the Security Zone in southern Lebanon successfully shielded Israeli civilians from cross-border attacks by Palestinian militants, but came at a great cost to Lebanese civilians and Palestinians. Despite Israel's success in eradicating PLO bases in Lebanon and its partial withdrawal in 1985, the invasion increased the severity of conflict with local Lebanese militias and resulted in the consolidation of several local Shia Islamic movements (including Hezbollah and Amal) from a previously unorganized guerrilla movement in the Shia-majority south. Over the years, combined casualties grew higher as both sides used more modern weaponry and as Hezbollah progressed in its tactics. By the early 1990s, Hezbollah, with support from Iran and Syria, emerged as the leading group and military power, monopolizing guerrilla activity in southern Lebanon.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: With no clear end-game in Lebanon, the Israeli military was unfamiliar with the type of warfare that Hezbollah waged, and while it could inflict losses on Hezbollah, there was no long-term strategy. With Hezbollah increasingly targeting the Galilee with rockets, the official purpose of the Security Zone—to protect Israel's northern communities—seemed contradictory. Hezbollah also excelled at psychological warfare, often recording their attacks on Israeli troops. Following the 1997 Israeli helicopter disaster, the Israeli public began to seriously question whether the military occupation of southern Lebanon was worth maintaining. The "Four Mothers" movement rose to the forefront of the public discourse, and played a leading role in swaying the public in favour of a complete withdrawal.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: It was common knowledge in Israel that the Security Zone was not permanent, but the Israeli government hoped that a withdrawal could be carried out in the context of a wider agreement with Syria and, by extension, Lebanon. However, talks with Syria failed. By 2000, following up on his promise during the 1999 Israeli general election, the newly elected Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak unilaterally withdrew Israeli forces from southern Lebanon within the year, in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 425 of 1978; Israel's withdrawal consequently resulted in the immediate and total collapse of the SLA, with many of its members escaping to Israel. The Lebanese government and Hezbollah still consider the withdrawal incomplete until Israel withdraws from Shebaa Farms. In 2020, Israel retrospectively recognized the conflict as a full-scale war.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: Following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the 1949 Armistice Agreements were signed with United Nations mediation. The Lebanese–Israeli agreement created the armistice line, which coincided exactly with the existing international boundary between Lebanon and Palestine from the Mediterranean to the Syrian tri-point on the Hasbani River. From this tri-point on the Hasbani the boundary follows the river northward to the village of Ghajar, then northeast, forming the Lebanese–Syrian border. (The southern line from the tri-point represents the Palestine–Syria border of 1923.) Israeli forces captured and occupied 13 villages in Lebanese territory during the conflict, including parts of Marjayun, Bint Jubayl, and areas near the Litani River, but withdrew following international pressure and the armistice agreement.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: Although the Israel–Lebanon border remained relatively quiet, entries in the diary of Moshe Sharett point to a continued territorial interest in the area. On 16 May 1954, during a joint meeting of senior officials of the defense and foreign affairs ministries, Ben Gurion raised the issue of Lebanon due to renewed tensions between Syria and Iraq, and internal trouble in Syria. Dayan expressed his enthusiastic support for entering Lebanon, occupying the necessary territory and creating a Christian regime that would ally itself with Israel. The issue was raised again in discussions at the Protocol of Sèvres.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: The Israeli victory in the 1967 Six-Day War vastly expanded their area occupied in all neighboring countries, with the exception of Lebanon, but this extended the length of the effective Lebanon–Israel border, with the occupation of the Golan Heights. Although with a stated requirement for defense, later Israeli expansion into Lebanon under very similar terms followed the 1977 elections, which for the first time, brought the Revisionist Likud to power.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: Beginning with the late 1960s and especially in the 1970s, following the defeat of PLO in Black September in Jordan, displaced Palestinians, including militants affiliated with the Palestinian Liberation Organization, began to settle in South Lebanon. The unrestrained buildup of Palestinian militia, and the large autonomy they exercised, led to the popular term "Fatahland" for South Lebanon. Since the mid 1970s the tensions between the various Lebanese factions and Palestinians had exploded, resulting in Lebanese Civil War.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: Following multiple attacks launched by Palestinian organizations in the 1970, which increased with the Lebanese Civil War, the Israeli government decided to take action. Desiring to break up and destroy this PLO stronghold, Israel briefly invaded Lebanon in 1978, but the results of this invasion were mixed. The PLO was pushed north of the Litani River and a buffer zone was created to keep them from returning, with the placement of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). In addition and despite earlier covert support, Israel established a second buffer with renegade Saad Haddad's Christian Free Lebanon Army enclave (initially based only in the towns of Marjayoun and Qlayaa); the now-public Israeli military commitment to the Christian forces was strengthened. For the first time however, Israel received substantive adverse publicity in the world press due to damage in South Lebanon, in which some 200,000 Lebanese (mostly Shia Muslims) fled the area and ended up in the southern suburbs of Beirut; this indirectly resulted in the Syrian forces in Lebanon turning against the Christians in late June and complicated the dynamics of the ongoing Lebanese Civil War.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: In 1982, the Israeli military began "Operation Peace for Galilee", a full-scale invasion of Lebanese territory. The invasion followed the 1978 Litani Operation, which gave Israel possession of the territory near the Israeli–Lebanese border. This follow-up invasion attempted to weaken the PLO as a unified political and military force and eventually led to the withdrawal of PLO and Syrian forces from Lebanon. By the end of this operation, Israel got control over Lebanon from Beirut southward, and attempted to install a pro-Israeli government in Beirut to sign a peace accord with it. This goal had never realized, partly because of the assassination of President Bashir Gemayel in September 1982, and the refusal of the Lebanese Parliament to endorse the accord. The withdrawal of the PLO forces in 1982 forced some Lebanese nationalists to start a resistance against the Israeli army led by the Lebanese Communist Party and Amal movement. During this time, some Amal members started the formation of an Islamic group supported by Iran that was the nucleus of the future "Islamic Resistance", and eventually become Hezbollah.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: Increased hostilities against the US resulted in the April 1983 United States Embassy bombing. In response, the US brokered the May 17 Agreement, in an attempt to stall hostilities between Israel and Lebanon. However, this agreement eventually failed to take shape, and hostilities continued. In October, the United States Marines barracks in Beirut was bombed (usually attributed to the Islamic Resistance groups). Following this incident, the United States withdrew its military forces from Lebanon.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: Suicide bombings became increasingly popular at this time, and were a major concern of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) both near Beirut and in the South. Among the most serious were the two suicide bombings against the Israeli headquarters in Tyre, which killed 103 soldiers, border policemen, and Shin Bet agents, and also killed 49–56 Lebanese. Israel believes those acts were among the first organized actions made by Shi'ite militants, later forming into Hizbullah. Subsequently, Israel withdrew from the Shouf Mountains, but continued to occupy Lebanon south of the Awali River.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: An increased number of Islamic militias began operating in South Lebanon, launching guerrilla attacks on Israeli and pro-Israel militia positions. Israeli forces often responded with increased security measures and airstrikes on militant positions, and casualties on all sides steadily climbed. In a vacuum left with eradication of PLO, the disorganized Islamic militants in South Lebanon began to consolidate. The emerging Hezbollah, soon to become the preeminent Islamic militia, evolved during this period. However, scholars disagree as to when Hezbollah came to be regarded as a distinct entity. Over time, a number of Shi’a group members were slowly assimilated into the organization, such as Islamic Jihad members, Organization of the Oppressed on Earth, and the Revolutionary Justice Organization.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: On 16 February 1985, Israel withdrew from Sidon and turned it over to the Lebanese Army, but faced attacks: 15 Israelis were killed and 105 wounded during the withdrawal. Dozens of SLA members were also assassinated. Under the Iron Fist policy, Israel retaliated in a series of raids. On March 11, Israeli forces raided the town of Zrariyah, killing 40 men. On March 10, a suicide bomber killed twelve Israeli soldiers from a convoy near Metula, inside Israel. From mid-February to mid-March, the Israelis lost 18 dead and 35 wounded. On 9 April, a Shiite girl drove a car bomb into an IDF convoy, and the following day, a soldier was killed by a land mine. During that same period, Israeli forces killed 80 Lebanese guerrillas in five weeks. Another 1,800 Shi'as were taken as prisoners. Israel withdrew from the Bekaa valley on 24 April, and from Tyre on the 29th, but continued to occupy a security zone in Southern Lebanon.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: In 1985 Hezbollah released an open letter to "The Downtrodden in Lebanon and in the World", which stated that the world was divided between the oppressed and the oppressors. The oppressors were named to be mainly the United States and Israel. This letter legitimized and praised the use of violence against the enemies of Islam, mainly the West.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: Israeli and SLA forces in the security zone began to come under attack. The first major incident occurred in August 1985, when Lebanese guerrillas believed to have been from Amal ambushed an Israeli convoy: two Israeli soldiers and three of the attackers were killed in the ensuing firefight.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: Lebanese guerrilla attacks, mainly the work of Hezbollah, increased. Fighting the Israeli occupation included hit-and-run guerrilla attacks, suicide bombings, and the Katyusha rocket attacks on civilian targets in Northern Israel, including Kiryat Shmona. The Katyusha proved to be an effective weapon and became a mainstay of Hezbollah military capabilities in South Lebanon. The attacks resulted in both military and civilian casualties. However, a considerable number of Lebanese guerillas were killed fighting Israeli and SLA troops, and many were captured. Prisoners were often detained in Israeli military prisons, or by the SLA in the Khiam detention center, where detainees were often tortured. Lebanese prisoners in Israel were arrested and detained for participating in guerrilla movements, and many were held for long periods of time.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: In 1987 Hezbollah fighters from the Islamic Resistance stormed and conquered an outpost in Bra’shit belonging to the South Lebanon Army in the security zone. A number of its defenders were killed or taken prisoner and the Hezbollah flag was raised on top of it. A Sherman tank was blown up and a M113 Armored Personal Carrier was captured and driven triumphantly all the way to Beirut. In September of that year, Israeli aircraft bombed three PLO bases on the outskirts of the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp, killing up to 41 people. An Israeli spokesman said the targets were being used by terrorist cells that were planning raids against Israel.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: On 2 January 1988, Israeli airstrikes on Ain al-Hilweh and along the coast North of Sidon left some 19 dead and 14 wounded. Three members of PFLP-GC and three from PSP were amongst those killed. Seven children and one woman were also killed. It was reported that the raids were retaliation for the 25 November 1987 PFLP-GC hang-glider attack in which six IDF soldiers were killed. In the previous two years there had been about forty Israeli air strikes on Lebanon.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: In May, Israel launched an offensive codenamed Operation Law and Order in which 1,500–2,000 Israeli soldiers raided the area around the Lebanese village of Meidoun. In two days of fighting, the IDF killed 50 Hizbullah fighters while losing 3 dead and 17 wounded.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: On 18 October 1988 eight Israeli soldiers were killed by a Hizbullah suicide car bomb. The Israelis responded with extensive air and land attacks.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: After Israel destroyed Hezbollah's headquarters in the town of Marrakeh, a Hezbollah suicide bomber destroyed an Israeli transport truck carrying soldiers on the Israel-Lebanon border. In response, Israeli forces ambushed two Hezbollah vehicles, killing eight Hezbollah fighters.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: On 27 July 1989 the Hizbullah leader in South Lebanon, Sheikh Abdel Karim Obeid and two of his aides, were abducted from his home in Jibchit, by IDF commandos. The night-time raid was planned by then Minister of Defence Yitzhak Rabin. Hizbullah responded by announcing the execution of Colonel Higgins, a senior American officer working with UNIFIL, who had been kidnapped in February 1988. The Obeid kidnapping led to the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 638, which condemned all hostage takings by all sides.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: The Lebanese Civil War officially came to an end with the 1989 Ta'if Accord, but the armed combat continued at least until October 1990, and in South Lebanon until at least 1991. In fact, the continued Israeli presence in South Lebanon resulted in continued low-intensity warfare and sporadic major combat until the Israeli withdrawal in 2000.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: On 30 December 1991 a car bomb killed 15 bystanders and injured over 100 in West Beirut. The attack took place in the mainly Shia Basta quarter.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: Though the majority of the Lebanese civil war conflicts ended in the months following the Ta'if Accord, Israel kept maintaining a military presence in South Lebanon. Consequently, the Islamic Resistance, by now dominated by Hezbollah, continued operations in the South.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: Several days of Israeli air raids ended on 4 June 1991. Targets, in the biggest attack since 1982, included buildings belonging to Fateh, PFLP, DFLP and Fateh-Revolutionary Command. Twenty-two people were killed and 82 wounded.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: A month later, 4 July 1991, following the failure of disarmament negotiations, as required by the Taif agreement, the Lebanese Army attacked Palestinian positions in Southern Lebanon. The offensive, involving 10,000 troops against an estimated 5,000 militia, lasted 3 days and ended with the Army taking all the Palestinian positions around Sidon. In the agreement that followed all heavy weapons were surrendered and infantry weapons only allowed in the two refugee camps, Ain al-Hilweh and Mieh Mieh. 73 people were killed in the fighting, and 200 wounded, mostly Palestinian.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: Hezbollah’s leader Abbas al-Musawi had announced that they would not give up their weapons. “Our guns are a red line that cannot be crossed”. On 16th July 1991 they ambushed an Israeli patrol north of the security zone in Kufr Huna. Three Israeli soldiers, including 2 officers, were killed and four wounded. One Hizbollah fighter was killed. The following day the South Lebanon Army destroyed 14 houses and burnt crops in neighbouring Majd al-Zun.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: Prior to their disbandment militiamen from Amal were also active in South Lebanon. On 29 July 1991 they killed three members of the South Lebanon Army (SLA). Israel responded with shelling that killed two villagers. On 23 August 1991 two members of the SLA were killed by members of Amal. The Israeli Army responded the following day with shelling which killed one civilian. Two Irish soldiers serving with UNIFIL were amongst the wounded.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: There was further violence at the end of 1991 with an Irish soldier serving with UNIFIL killed by the SLA on the 15th November and three Lebanese Army soldiers killed by an Israeli rocket on 25th November.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: On 16 February 1992, al-Musawi was assassinated, along with his wife, son and four others when an Israeli AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships fired three missiles at his motorcade. The Israeli attack came in retaliation for the killings of three Israeli soldiers two days earlier when their camp was infiltrated. Hezbollah responded with rocket fire onto the Israeli security zone, and Israel then fired back and sent two armored columns past the security zone to hit Hezbollah strongholds in Kafra and Yater. Musawi was succeeded by Hassan Nasrallah. One of Nasrallah's first public declarations was the "retribution" policy: If Israel hit Lebanese civilian targets, then Hezbollah would retaliate with attacks on Israeli territory. Meanwhile, Hezbollah continued attacks against IDF targets within occupied Lebanese territory. In response to the attack, Ehud Sadan, the chief of security at the Israeli Embassy in Turkey was assassinated by a car bomb. Islamic Jihad (Lebanon) is reported to have claimed that the 1992 attack on Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, in which 29 people were killed, was their response.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: Three months after the assassination the Israeli Air Force launched five air raids on Lebanon in six days. Some of the targets struck were as far north as Baalbek. On the final day, 26 May 1992, there were more than 40 missile strikes. Over 20 civilians were killed during the offensive.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: In 1993, hostilities flared again. After a month of Hezbollah shelling on Israeli towns and attacks on its soldiers, Israel conducted a seven-day operation in July 1993 called Operation Accountability in order to hit Hezbollah. One Israeli soldier and 8–50 Hezbollah fighters were killed in the operation, along with 2 Israeli and 118 Lebanese civilians. After one week of fighting in South Lebanon, a mutual agreement mediated by the United States prohibited attacks on civilian targets by both parts.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: The end of Operation Accountability saw a few days of calm before light shelling resumed. On 17 August, a major artillery exchange took place, and two days later, nine Israeli soldiers were killed in two Hezbollah attacks. Israel responded with airstrikes against Hezbollah positions, killing at least two Hezbollah fighters.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: In May 1994, Israeli commandos kidnapped an Amal leader, Mustafa Dirani, and in June, an Israeli airstrike against a training camp killed 30–45 Hezbollah cadets. Hezbollah retaliated by firing four barrages of Katyusha rockets into northern Israel.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: On 31 March 1995, Rida Yasin, also known as Abu Ali, was killed by a single rocket fired from an Israeli helicopter while in a car near Derdghaya in the Israeli security zone 10km east of Tyre. Yasin was a senior military commander in southern Lebanon. His companion in the car was also killed. An Israeli civilian was killed and fifteen wounded in the retaliatory rocket fire. In May 1995, four Hezbollah fighters were killed in a firefight with Israeli troops while trying to infiltrate an Israeli position.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: Operation Grapes of Wrath in 1996 resulted in the deaths of more than 150 Lebanese civilians, most of them in the shelling of a United Nations base at Qana. After seventeen days of bombing a ceasefire was agreed between Israel and Hezbollah, committing to avoid civilian casualties; however, combat continued for at least two months. A total of 14 Hezbollah fighters, about a dozen Syrian soldiers, and 3 Israeli soldiers were killed in the fighting.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: Brig. Gen. Eli Amitai, the IDF commander of the security zone, was lightly injured 14 December 1996 when an IDF convoy he was travelling in was ambushed in the eastern sector of the security zone. Less than a week later Amitai was again lightly injured when Hezbollah unleashed a mortar barrage on an SLA position near Bra'shit he was visiting together with Maj. Gen. Amiram Levine, head of the IDF's Northern Command.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: In December 1996, two SLA soldiers were killed in three days of fighting, and a Hezbollah fighter was also killed by Israeli soldiers.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: On 4 February 1997, two Israeli transport helicopters collided over She'ar Yashuv in Northern Israel while waiting for clearance to fly into Lebanon. A total of 73 IDF soldiers were killed in the disaster. On 28 February one Israeli soldier and four Hezbollah guerrillas were killed in a clash.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: Throughout 1997, Israeli special forces, particularly the Egoz Reconnaissance Unit, hampered Hezbollah's ability to infiltrate the security zone and plant roadside bombs by staking out Hezbollah infiltration trails. Encouraged by these successes, Israeli commandos began conducting raids north of the security zone to kill Hezbollah commanders. In one particular raid, carried out on the night of 3–4 August 1997, Golani Brigade soldiers raided the village of Kfeir and left behind three roadside bombs packed with ball bearings that were detonated from an Israeli Air Force UAV hours later, killing five Hezbollah members including two commanders. However, on 28 August, a major friendly fire incident occurred in Wadi Saluki during a clash between IDF troops from the Golani Brigade, together with air and artillery support, and Amal militants. Although four Amal militants were killed, Israeli shelling started a fire that engulfed the area, killing four soldiers.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: On 5 September 1997, a seaborne raid by 16 Israeli Shayetet 13 naval commandos failed after the troops stumbled into a Hezbollah and Amal ambush. As the force headed towards the coastal town of Ansariye, it was ambushed with IEDs and subjected to withering fire that killed the commander, Lt. Col. Yossi Korakin, and caused bombs being carried by another soldier to explode, killing more of the force. The survivors radioed for help, and Israel immediately dispatched a rescue team from Unit 669 and Sayeret Matkal in two CH-53 helicopters. A rescue force of helicopters and missile boats arrived to provide support as the rescuers evacuated the dead and survivors, conducting airstrikes. Lebanese Army anti-aircraft units put up anti aircraft fire and fired illumination rounds at the helicopters, and an Israeli F-16 subsequently attacked an anti-aircraft position. Hezbollah put up mortar fire, killing a Druze army doctor with the rescue force and damaging a helicopter and Israeli missile boats fired at the source of the mortar fire. The battle ended when Israel, by means of contacting the US government and delivering a message to be passed on to Syria and from there to Hezbollah, threatened to respond with massive force if Hezbollah tried to stop the rescue mission, causing Hezbollah and Amal to cease fire while the Lebanese Army moved in. Twelve Israelis were killed, along with six Hezbollah and Amal fighters and two Lebanese soldiers. A woman in a passing car was also killed. In 2010 Hassan Nasrallah claimed that Hezbollah had managed to hack into Israeli UAV:s flying over Lebanon and thus learn which route the commandos were planning to take and thus prepared the ambush accordingly. On September 13–14, IDF raids in Lebanon killed a further four Hezbollah fighters and six Lebanese soldiers.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: On 12 September 1997, three Hezbollah fighters were killed in an ambush by Egoz commandos on the edge of the security zone. One of them was Hadi Nasrallah, the son of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. On 25 May 1998 the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in the failed commando raid were exchanged for 65 Lebanese prisoners and the bodies of 40 Hezbollah fighters and Lebanese soldiers captured by Israel. Among the bodies returned to Lebanon were the remains of Hadi Nasrallah.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: In the autumn of 1997 Hizbollah began using Sager missiles. On 8 October two IDF soldiers were killed when their tank was hit. There were six other casualties, two of them serious. The attack took place 300 metres from the border with Israel. Ten days later another soldier was killed when his tank was hit. This brought the number of Israeli soldiers killed in 1997 up to thirty nine, twelve more than in 1996. The new tactics resulted in Centurion tanks being withdrawn and the armour of the Merkava being upgraded. At the time it was reported that Hizbollah had five hundred fighters in the field at one time, whilst the IDF had 1,000 troops in the security zone alongside the SLA’s 2,000.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: During 1998, 21 Israeli soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon. Israel undertook a concerted campaign to hamper Hezbollah's capabilities, and in December 1998, the Israeli military assassinated Zahi Naim Hadr Ahmed Mahabi, a Hezbollah explosives expert, north of Baalbek.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: 23 February 1999 an IDF paratrooper unit on a night time patrol was ambushed in south Lebanon. Major Eitan Balahsan and two lieutenants were killed and another five soldiers were wounded.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: Less than a week later (28 February) a roadside bomb exploded on the road between Kaukaba and Arnoun in the Israeli-occupied security zone. Brigadier General Erez Gerstein, commander of the Golani Brigade and head of the IDF Liaison Unit in Lebanon, thus the highest ranking Israeli officer serving in Lebanon at the time, as well as two Druze Israeli soldiers and one Israeli journalist were killed in the blast.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: In May 1999 Hezbollah forces simultaneously attacked 14 Israeli and SLA outposts in south Lebanon. The outpost in Beit Yahoun compound belonging to the SLA was overrun and one SLA soldier was taken prisoner. The Hizbullah fighters made off with an Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC). The area was bombed by the Israeli Air Force. The captured APC was paraded through the southern suburbs of Beirut.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: In one notable battle, Hezbollah saboteurs surprised an IDF force from the Golani Brigade stationed in an old fort. Two Israeli soldiers and three Hezbollah fighters were killed.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: In August 1999, Hezbollah commander Ali Hassan Deeb, better known as Abu Hassan, a leader in Hezbollah's special force, was assassinated in an Israeli military operation. Deeb was driving in Sidon when two roadside bombs were detonated by a remote signal from a UAV overhead.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: Overall, in the course of 1999, several dozen Hezbollah and Amal fighters were killed. Twelve Israeli soldiers and one civilian were also killed, one of them in accident.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: In July 1999, Ehud Barak became Israel's Prime Minister, promising Israel would unilaterally withdraw to the international border by July 2000. Prior to his actions, many believed that Israel would only withdraw from South Lebanon upon reaching an agreement with Syria.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: In January 2000, Hezbollah assassinated the commander of the South Lebanon Army's Western Brigade, Colonel Aql Hashem, at his home in the security zone. Hashem had been responsible for day-to-day operations of the SLA and was a leading candidate to succeed General Antoine Lahad. After this assassination there were doubts about the leadership of the South Lebanon Army (SLA). The pursuit and assassination of Hashim was documented step by step and the footage was broadcast on Hezbollah TV channel al-Manar. The operation and the way it was presented in media dealt a devastating blow to the morale in the SLA.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: During the spring of 2000, Hezbollah operations stepped up considerably, with persistent harassment of Israeli military outposts in occupied Lebanese territory. As preparation for the major withdrawal plan, Israeli forces began abandoning several forward positions within the security zone of South Lebanon. On 24 May, Israel announced that it would withdraw all troops from South Lebanon. All Israeli forces had withdrawn from Lebanon by the end of the next day, more than six weeks before its stated deadline of 7 July.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: The Israeli pullout resulted in the collapse of the SLA and the rapid advance of Hezbollah forces into the area. As the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) withdrew, thousands of Shi'a Lebanese rushed back to the South to reclaim their properties. This withdrawal was widely considered a victory for Hezbollah and boosted its popularity in Lebanon. The completeness of the withdrawal is still disputed as Lebanese Government and Hezbollah claim Israel still holds Shebaa farms, a small piece of territory on the Lebanon-Israel-Syria border, with disputed sovereignty.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: As a Syrian-backed Lebanese government refused to demarcate its border with Israel, Israel worked with UN cartographers led by regional coordinator Terje Rød-Larsen to certify Israel had withdrawn from all occupied Lebanese territory. On 16 June 2000, UN Security Council concluded that Israel had indeed withdrawn its forces from all of Lebanon, in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 425 (1978).


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: Israel considered this move as tactical withdrawal since it always regarded the Security Zone as a buffer zone to defend Israel's citizens. By ending the occupation, Barak's cabinet assumed it would improve its worldwide image. Ehud Barak has argued that "Hezbollah would have enjoyed international legitimacy in their struggle against a foreign occupier", if the Israelis had not unilaterally withdrawn without a peace agreement.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: Upon Israel's withdrawal, an increasing fear that Hezbollah would seek vengeance against those thought to have supported Israel became widespread among the Christian Lebanese of the Southern Lebanon. During and after the withdrawal around 10,000 Lebanese, mostly Maronites, fled into Galilee. Hezbollah later met with Lebanese Christian clerics to reassure them that the Israeli withdrawal was a victory for Lebanon as a nation, not just one sect or militia.


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: The tentative peace, resulting from the withdrawal, did not last. On 7 October 2000 Hezbollah attacked Israel. In a cross-border raid, three Israeli soldiers, who were patrolling the Lebanese border were attacked and abducted. The event escalated into a 2-month fire exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah, primarily at the Hermon ridge. The bodies of the abducted soldiers were returned to Israel in a January 2004 prisoner exchange involving 450 Lebanese prisoners held in Israeli jails. The long-time Lebanese prisoner Samir al-Quntar was excluded from the deal. The government of Israel, however, had agreed to a "further arrangement", whereby Israel would release Samir al-Quntar if it was supplied with "tangible information on the fate of captive navigator Ron Arad".


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: According to Harel and Issacharoff the second phase of the prisoner exchange deal was only a "legal gimmick". Israel was not satisfied with the information supplied by Hezbollah and refused to release al-Quntar. "Cynics may well ask whether it was worth getting entangled in the Second Lebanon War just to keep Kuntar […] in prison for an extra few years."


title: South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

text: In July 2006, Hezbollah performed a cross-border raid while shelling Israeli towns and villages. During the raid Hezbollah succeeded in kidnapping two Israeli soldiers and killing eight others. In retaliation Israel began the 2006 Lebanon War to rescue the abducted soldiers and to create a bufferzone in Southern Lebanon.


title: Mrs. Lovett

text: Mrs. Lovett is a fictional character appearing in many adaptations of the story "Sweeney Todd". Her first name is most commonly referred to as Nellie, although she has also been referred to as Amelia, Margery, Maggie, Sarah, Shirley, Wilhelmina and Claudetta. A baker from London, Mrs. Lovett is an accomplice and business partner of Sweeney Todd, a barber and serial killer from Fleet Street. She makes meat pies from Todd’s victims.


title: Mrs. Lovett

text: First appearing in the Victorian penny dreadful serial "The String of Pearls", it is debated if she was based on an actual person or not. The character also appears in modern media related to "Sweeney Todd" including the Stephen Sondheim and its 2007 .


title: Mrs. Lovett

text: In every version of the story in which she appears, Mrs. Lovett is the business partner and accomplice of barber/serial killer Sweeney Todd; in some versions, she is also his lover. She makes and sells meat pies made from Todd's victims.


title: Mrs. Lovett

text: While in most versions of the Sweeney Todd story Mrs. Lovett's past history is not stated, usually she is depicted as a childless widow, although in some depictions (but very rarely) Mr. Albert Lovett is shown. In Christopher Bond's 1973 play "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" and Stephen Sondheim's , before she goes into business with Todd she is living in poverty in a filthy, vermin-infested flat, and laments that her pies are the worst ones in London. While she feels no remorse about using the bodies of Todd's victims in her pies, she sometimes shows to have a softer side to those in need. In the Bond play and Sondheim musical, she takes in the young orphan Tobias Ragg and considers taking in Todd's daughter Johanna, as well. In the original "penny dreadful" serial and George Dibdin Pitt's 1847 stage play, "The String of Pearls; or, The Fiend of Fleet Street", however, this does not extend to her "assistants", whom she imprisons in the bakehouse and often slaves to death.


title: Mrs. Lovett

text: Although Mrs. Lovett's character and role in the story are similar in each version, certain details vary according to the story's interpretation. In some versions, for example, Mrs. Lovett commits suicide when their crimes are discovered, while in others, Todd kills her himself or she is arrested and escapes execution by turning King's Evidence against Todd. Her physical appearance varies from a slim and alluring beauty, to a plump, homely lunatic. Her age is also differing in many adaptations; though it is never specifically stated in any versions, there are some (most noticeably in Sondheim's musical) where she is older than Todd, often by a difference of over fifteen years and others where she is around his age. Whether their relationship is platonic, romantic or merely sexual also varies according to interpretation.


title: Mrs. Lovett

text: In Stephen Sondheim's 1979 stage musical "Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street" and Tim Burton's , Todd pays a visit to Mrs. Lovett's pie shop below his old home after 15 years in exile, seeking information about his lost family. Mrs. Lovett recognizes him as her former tenant, Benjamin Barker, with whom she was (and is) secretly in love. She informs him that his wife, Lucy, was sexually abused by Judge Turpin, who had exiled Todd on a false charge, and informs Todd that Lucy was so distraught that she poisoned herself with arsenic. Seeking vengeance, Todd reopens his shaving parlour above the shop, and slits the throats of his customers. Mrs. Lovett initiates a plan for Todd to send the corpses of his victims down a chute that leads to her bakehouse. She then uses the flesh to bake meat pies, which make her business very successful.


title: Mrs. Lovett

text: She and Todd take in an orphan, Tobias Ragg, to whom she becomes like a mother. She also dreams of marrying Todd, who is completely uninterested in her.


title: Mrs. Lovett

text: In the story's climactic "Final Sequence", Todd murders Beadle Bamford, Turpin and a beggar woman, and discovers that the latter is actually Lucy. Todd confronts Mrs. Lovett, who confesses that Lucy survived drinking the poison but was driven insane, reduced to begging. Todd then demands why Mrs. Lovett lied to him, to which Mrs. Lovett then confesses her love for him, and promises she would be a better wife than Lucy ever was. Todd pretends to forgive her, but later throws her into the furnace, burning her alive as retribution for her lies. However, killing Lovett proves to be Todd's fatal mistake; Tobias, who loved her like a mother, emerges from hiding and kills Todd by slitting his throat with his own razor.


title: Mrs. Lovett

text: Sondheim based his characterization of Mrs. Lovett in large part upon the Utilitarian ideas criticized by Charles Dickens in his novel "Hard Times", specifically in relation to the character of Mr. Thomas Gradgrind, who embodies the Utilitarian ideas and who takes pride in frequently referring to himself as "eminently practical," which Dickens emphasizes to be the character's primary character trait on numerous occasions. This is evidenced by the following: first, on two occasions in Sondheim's musical, Sweeney refers to Mrs. Lovett as "eminently practical" when praising her cold-blooded resourcefulness in relation to her meat pie recipes (which are logically Utilitarian in nature); and second, Mrs. Lovett concludes her opening number by stating twice that "Times is hard," a thinly veiled reference to the title of the Dickens novel.


title: Mrs. Lovett

text: In the musical Mrs. Lovett sings many numbers by herself and with other characters. The tracks were all composed by Stephen Sondheim. These include:


title: Shivneri Fort

text: Shivneri Fort (Marathi pronunciation: ]) is a 17th-century military fortification located near Junnar in Pune district in Maharashtra, India. It is the birthplace of Shivaji, the emperor and founder of Maratha Empire.


title: Shivneri Fort

text: Shivneri is known to be a place of Buddhist dominion from the 1st century AD. Its caves, rock-cut architecture and water system indicate the presence of habitation since 1st century AD. Shivneri got its name as it was under the possession of the Yadavas of Devagiri. This fort was mainly used to guard the old trading route from Desh to the port city of Kalyan. The place passed on to the Bahmani Sultanate after the weakening of Delhi Sultanate during the 15th century and it then passed on to the Ahmadnagar Sultanate in the 16th century. In 1595, a Maratha chief named Maloji Bhonsle, the grandfather of Shivaji Bhosale, was enabled by the Ahmadnagar Sultan, Bahadur Nizam Shah and he gave him Shivneri and Chakan. Shivaji was born at the fort on 19 February 1630 (some accounts place it 1627), and spent his childhood there. Inside the fort is a small temple dedicated to goddess Shivai Devi, after whom Shivaji was named. The English traveller Fraze visited the fort in 1673 and found it invincible. According to his accounts, the fort was well-stocked to feed thousand families for seven years. The fort came under the control of the British Rule in 1820 after the Third Anglo-Maratha War.


title: Shivneri Fort

text: In 2021, it was added to the tentative list of the UNESCO World Heritage sites as part of "Serial Nomination of Maratha Military Architecture in Maharashtra".


title: Shivneri Fort

text: Shivneri Fort is a hill fort having a triangular shape and has its entrance from the South-west side of the hill. Apart from the main gate there is an entrance to the fort from side called locally as "the chain gate", where in one has to hold chains to climb up to the fort gate. The fort extends up to with seven spiral well-defended gates. There are mud walls all around the fort. Inside the fort, the major buildings are the prayer hall, a tomb and a mosque. There is an overhanging where executions took place. There are many gates structures protecting this fort. Mana Daravaja is one of the many gates of the fort. Its also called the origin of Tune.


title: Shivneri Fort

text: At the centre of the fort is a water pond which is called 'Badami Talav', and to the south of this pond are statues of Jijabai and a young Shiva. In the fort there are two water springs, called Ganges and Yamuna, which have water throughout the year. Two kilometers away from this fort there are the Buddhist rock-cut caves, called Lenyadri caves, which is also one of Ashtavinayak temple in Maharashtra. It has been declared as a protected monument.


title: Shivneri Fort

text: The nearest town Junnar is a taluka place and is well connected by road. Junnar is about 90 km from Pune. The fort is at about 2–3 km from the junnar town. It is easy to reach the fort top via main entrance, however the trekkers with proper climbing equipment can try the chain route which is located on the western scarp of the fort. From the top of the fort, Narayangad, Hadsar, Chavand and Nimgiri forts can easily be seen.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: Donald Trump, President of the United States from January 2017 to January 2021, has controversially refused to release his tax returns since the 2015–2016 campaign for the presidency at the 2016 election. Though Trump promised to release the returns during his campaign, he repeatedly refused to release his tax return information throughout his presidency, the first major-party U.S. presidential candidate or president since 1976 to do so. Trump had repeatedly and falsely claimed that he could not release the returns while they were under audit by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). It is IRS policy, but not law, to annually audit tax returns of presidents and vice presidents.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: After the 2018 mid-term elections, Democrats gained a majority in the House of Representatives and its committees, a number of which sought information on Trump's business and personal dealings, including Trump's tax returns, as part of their investigations. At about the same time, the Manhattan District Attorney's office commenced its own investigations involving Trump's business and personal dealings and campaign financing and expenditures. Trump refused to cooperate with all requests for information, and sought to prevent others from providing such information.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: In May 2019, the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee subpoenaed the IRS for six years of Trump's returns. The Trump administration refused to comply, leading to a lawsuit. On July 30, 2021, the U.S. Justice Department said the IRS must provide the tax returns to the committee. Trump's legal team sued, but the lawsuit was dismissed. On November 30, 2022, a week after Trump lost an appeal to the Supreme Court, the committee received the tax returns.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: Separately, the U.S. House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Trump's accounting firm for tax records and other records as part of an investigation into Trump's conduct, which Trump sued to block. The District of Columbia's federal district court and court of appeals upheld the validity of the subpoenas. In the "Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP" decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the lower courts should further assess the congressional subpoena.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: In late August 2019, a New York state grand jury subpoenaed Trump for eight years of his personal and corporate tax returns as part of an investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, including a hush-money payment made during the 2016 presidential election campaign and potential tax fraud. Trump refused to comply, contending that a sitting president enjoys "absolute immunity from criminal process of any kind". In October 2019, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled against Trump and ordered him to comply with the subpoena; this ruling was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in November 2019. Trump appealed the decision against him to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2020, in "Trump v. Vance", the Court rejected Trump's broadest claims, holding that the president lacks absolute immunity from state criminal subpoenas, and ruling that the subpoena must be further examined for validity by the lower courts. After Trump made a narrower argument to the Second Circuit, the court again ruled against him in October 2020. Trump again appealed to the Supreme Court, which was rejected in February 2021, allowing the tax records to be released to prosecutors and a grand jury. The same month, the accounting firm Mazars provided the Manhattan District Attorney with Trump's tax returns from 2011 to mid-2019.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: In response to Trump's refusal to release his tax returns, California enacted legislation to require presidential candidates to release tax returns to be allowed on the primary election ballot. The California Supreme Court later found this law to violate the state's constitution. Separately, in New York, a state law was passed which would permit the state tax officials to release state tax returns to specific congressional committees upon request for legitimate purposes.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: On February 22, 2021, Mazars provided millions of pages of Donald Trump's financial documents to the Manhattan District Attorney, including his tax returns from January 2011 to August 2019. The analysis is ongoing. By March 19, 2021, Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen had met eight times with investigators for the Manhattan District Attorney to cooperate with their inquiry.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: Fragments of information about Trump's taxes leaked at multiple times prior to 2020. In 2016, "The Washington Post" reported a prior audit of Trump's tax returns for 2002 through 2008 by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) which was "closed administratively by agreement with the I.R.S. without assessment or payment, on a net basis, of any deficiency." The audit centered on a potential failure to report cancelled debts as income by Trump, and whether he performed a stock-for-debt swap. Some tax attorneys speculate that the government may ultimately have reduced what Trump was able to claim as a loss without requiring him to pay any additional taxes. It is unknown whether the IRS challenged Trump's use of the stock-for-debt swap, which is a maneuver with questionable legality. Congress had previously banned equity for debt swaps by corporations in 1993, and by partnerships such as Trump's in 2004.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: In a separate leak, parts of Trump's 1995 and 2005 tax returns were examined by multiple news organizations. "The New York Times" examined three pages of Trump's 1995 return in October 2016, and found that in that year, Trump declared a net operating loss of more than $500 million. Under section 172 of the Internal Revenue Code, this gave Trump a $915.7 million net loss. This loss was carried over to offset income for up to 18 years after it was originally claimed. Later, in March 2017, journalist David Cay Johnston obtained the first two pages of Trump's 2005 federal income tax returns, which were given to Rachel Maddow and shown on MSNBC. These pages showed Trump's gross adjusted income to be $150 million and showed he paid $38 million in federal taxes. The White House confirmed the authenticity of these documents.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: In 2019, "The New York Times" obtained partial information from transcripts of Trump's IRS Form 1040 (the main federal tax form) spanning 1985 to 1994. The records show that Trump lost $1.17 billion over that period, with the amount more than "nearly any other individual American taxpayer" during that time. The information showed Trump claimed those losses to avoid tax liability in eight of those years. Trump himself has acknowledged the tax advantages inherent in the real estate business, such as large write-offs from using depreciation of property to generate losses and reduce tax liabilities. However, the "Times" reported that "depreciation cannot account for the hundreds of millions of dollars in losses."


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: On September 27, 2020, "The New York Times" published a report on more than two decades of Trump's tax-return data, including information from 2017 and 2018, his first two years in office. The "Times" obtained the data earlier that month. The documents contradict many of Trump's public claims to have a flourishing and prosperous business empire, showing that as a result of reporting losses in many years and receiving a $72.9 million tax refund, Trump paid no net federal income taxes in eleven of the preceding 15 years. After the refund, Trump had an average tax bill of $1.4 million per year over the 18 years. In 2016, Trump paid only $750 in federal income tax, and in 2017, he paid another $750 in federal income tax. This was much less than other recent presidents paid while in office. His immediate two predecessors, Barack Obama and George W. Bush, routinely paid $100,000 annually in federal income tax, and sometimes far more. In 2017, Trump's pre-credit tax liability was $7,435,857. All but $750 of this amount was negated by carried-over tax credits, of which he had $22.7 million at the time. It is unclear why Trump chose not to cancel out his federal income tax liability completely. The data do not reveal Trump's net worth. Tax-return data largely lack specifics allowing for financial connections to be identified, and the data do not reveal any previously unknown connections to Russia.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: In the twenty years examined by the "Times", Trump engaged in tax avoidance to a far greater extent than most affluent Americans (the top 0.001% of tax filers). Due to this avoidance, Trump paid "about $400 million less in combined federal income taxes than a very wealthy person who paid the average for that group each year." While in many years Trump ended with little or no tax liability, there is no evidence he ever failed to file a tax return, or file for an extension and pay his expected tax burden by the annual filing deadline, even if such payments were later refunded when the returns were completed. Over two decades, Trump's golf courses and other businesses regularly lost significant amounts of money, which is one way Trump was able to reduce his tax liability. For example, in 2018 Trump reported $47.4 million in losses, and since 2000, Trump reported total losses of $315.6 million from his golf courses alone. While Trump had significant income in many years, including from "The Apprentice", he placed millions of dollars into his businesses which recorded losses for the year. Many of these businesses also claimed significant non-cash losses for the "depreciation" of the properties owned, but this cannot account for the entirety of the losses Trump claimed on his returns. The Trump Tower in New York is one of the few businesses he owns that turns an annual profit, but Trump still appears to owe the "full $100 million" mortgage which will come due in 2022.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: Trump's $72.9 million tax refund covering multiple years of paid taxes is currently under audit by the IRS. The audit began in 2011 and has not been resolved as of 2020. In the event the IRS determines the refund was improper, Trump would be required to repay more than $100 million, which includes interest on the amount. Trump has also personally guaranteed $421 million in debt, most of which is due within four years. Trump previously expressed regret that he had personally guaranteed debt during the 1980s which brought him close to personal bankruptcy when his businesses faltered in the early 1990s. The bulk of the debt came from Trump's struggling Doral golf resort ($125 million) and the Washington D.C. Trump International Hotel ($160 million). Trump also had debt forgiven amounting to "far more money than previously known: a total of $287 million since 2010". Debt which has been forgiven is supposed to be treated as income, but he used tax provisions to avoid or defer reporting it as such.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: The "Times" notes that multiple potential violations of tax rules are present in the refunds examined. This includes the payment of "consulting fees" to Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump while she was a top executive at the Trump Organization, which was used to reduce Trump's tax liability. Overall, Trump's companies appeared to claim 20% of their income was used for "consulting fees"which do not need to be explained further but can be written off as business expenses. Trump also appears to have aggressively classified personal-lifestyle related expenses as business expenses in order to write them off and reduce his liability. This includes at least $70,000 used for haircuts (some during the production of "The Apprentice"), as well as more than $100,000 to a makeup artist and hair stylist favored by Ivanka Trump. In many years Trump also classified payments for his aircraft and its support as business expenses. Trump also classified Seven Springs, his estate in Bedford, New York, as an "investment property" in order to write off $2.2 million in property taxes, even though the family uses it as a personal retreat.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: Over the years examined, Trump reported receiving $73 million in revenue from outside the United States, including some from licensing deals in countries with authoritarian rulers. He was also paid more than $8.7 million by the multilevel marketing company ACN Inc., which was accused of defrauding vulnerable consumers. Trump shot promotional videos for the company, which was accused of consumer fraud in a lawsuit filed in 2018. The "Times" reported that Trump's financial condition at the time he announced his presidential candidacy in 2015 "lends some credence to the notion that his long-shot campaign was at least in part a gambit to reanimate the marketability of his name".


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: Trump dismissed the "Times" report, responding with a blend of denials and justifications. He criticized what he called the "bad intent" of the report, but did not dispute the facts behind it. He also contended that the tax authorities had mistreated him.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Trump's indebtedness raises concerns about national security, since it represents "over $400 million in leverage that somebody has over the president of the United States" and it is not known to whom the debt is owed.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: In 1999, while Trump was considering whether to run for president under the Reform Party, he said "probably wouldn't have a problem with" releasing his tax returns if he ran.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: In April 2011, Trump said that when President Barack Obama produces "his birth certificate ... I'd love to give my tax returns." Obama's birth certificate was released a week later, resulting in Trump's saying his tax returns would be released "at the appropriate time".


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: An undocumented immigrant housekeeper from Costa Rica working at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, earned $26,792.90 and paid more in federal income taxes than Trump did ($0) in 2011.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: In 2012, Trump implored for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's tax returns to be released on April 1, which "historically is the time that everybody gives them". That year, Trump also said that not seeing a presidential candidate's tax returns would lead people to think there was "almost, like, something wrong. What's wrong?"


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: Trump's former political adviser Sam Nunberg said in 2013 and 2014 that Trump had considered the possibility of releasing his tax returns as part of a presidential campaign, believing that showing how little he paid in taxes would make him appear to be a savvy businessman. Nunberg said by November 2014, he had persuaded Trump to reverse course and withhold his tax returns, as Trump decided he "wanted to look rich rather than smart". In May 2014, Trump said in an interview: "If I decide to run for office, I'll produce my tax returns, absolutely and I would love to do that."


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: In February 2015, Trump said he would release tax returns if he ran for president. On another occasion that month, he declared: "I have no objection to certainly showing tax returns." Later in February 2015, Trump warned: "I will tell you upfront ... I want to pay as little taxes as I can as a private person". In May 2016, Trump voiced similar sentiments, stating that he tries "very hard to pay as little tax as possible". In 2015, Trump criticized corporate executives and "hedge fund guys" for paying zero or negligible taxes. He also alleged in 2011 and 2012 that half of all Americans do not pay income taxes, stating, "it's a problem," while alluding to "crippling" government debt. In 2012, Trump had criticized President Obama for "only" paying a tax rate of around 20%. Trump announced his candidacy for president in June 2015.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: In January 2016, Trump was asked by Chuck Todd if he would release his tax returns, to which Trump answered: "we'll be working that over in the next period of time, Chuck. Absolutely. ... at the appropriate time, you'll be very satisfied." In February 2016, Trump said he would release his tax returns "[p]robably over the next few months. They're being worked on now." Later that month, Trump falsely claimed that he could not release his tax returns because he was under audit. Nothing prevents a taxpayer from releasing his own tax returns; the IRS has confirmed that individuals are free to share their own tax information. Every president from Richard Nixon onward has voluntarily released his tax returns annually, and the IRS automatically (since the 1970s) audits the tax returns of presidents and vice presidents.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: In May 2016, Trump said he would not release his tax returns before the November 2016 election. Trump also said in May 2016 that "there's nothing to learn from" his tax returns, and said on ABC News that his tax rate is "none of your business". Trump's refusal broke with tradition, as all major presidential nominees from 1976 onward have released their tax returns.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: Trump was criticized for his refusal to release tax information. Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney called Trump's refusal "disqualifying" and said the only logical reason for Trump was that "there is a bombshell in them." John Fund of the "National Review" feared that the returns contained an electoral "time bomb" and called upon Republican convention delegates to abstain from voting for Trump if he did not release the information.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: During the presidential debates, Trump's opponent Hillary Clinton criticized Trump for not disclosing his tax returns, saying that only "a couple of years" of Trump's tax returns were publicly available, "and they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax." Trump responded: "That makes me smart." Clinton went on to suggest that Trump might not have "paid any federal income tax for a lot of years"; Trump responding by saying that the taxes he paid "would be squandered" by the government.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: In October 2016, "The New York Times" published the first page of Trump's state tax returns for 1995, revealing that he had declared a $916 million loss that year, which could have allowed him to pay no taxes at all for 18 subsequent years.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: As president, Trump continued to withhold his tax returns. In May 2017, Trump said he "might" release his tax returns only after he had stepped down as president. This was in spite of his previous commitment made during his campaign to release his tax returns once they were not under audit.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: In 2018, a "New York Times" investigation into Trump's tax returns revealed that despite Trump's claims to be a self-made billionaire, he had actually received more than $400 million (in 2018 dollars) from his father, Fred Trump, most of it in ways that avoided paying gift or inheritance tax. The 13,000-word report was one of the longest investigative articles ever published by the "Times".


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: In January 2017, an online petition on the "We the People" portion of the White House's website calling for the release of Trump's tax returns was set up. The petition gained more than a million signatures, becoming the most signed petition on the White House's website. However, the White House gave no official response to the petition as of April 2017. Trump spokesperson Kellyanne Conway then said that "The White House response is that he's not going to release the tax returns" and that "people didn't care" about Trump's tax returns. In response, Jennifer Taub and others planned the Tax March on April 15, 2017 (Tax Day) to demand that Trump release his tax returns; tens of thousands of people marched in New York and dozens of cities across the country.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: After winning control of the House in the 2018 elections, House Democrats signaled their intent to use their new power to demand Trump's tax returns in the new Congress, which convened in January 2019. On April 3, 2019, the chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means, Congressman Richard Neal, formally requested IRS Commissioner Charles P. Rettig to provide six years (2013 through 2018) of Trump's returns. The request, made in a letter, set a deadline of seven days. Neal again wrote to Rettig on April 13, setting a second deadline of April 23 and writing that a failure to meet the deadline would be "interpreted as a denial".


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: Under a 1924 federal tax law, § 6103 of title 26 of the United States Code, Congress may request copies of anyone's tax returns. The treasury secretary is legally obliged to provide the tax returns, and there is no apparent legal mechanism to deny Congress's request. On April 5, 2019, Trump's personal lawyer William Consovoy wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of the Treasury (the parent agency of the IRS), claiming that the request for Trump's tax information is "not consistent with governing law" and Congress is trying to violate Trump's First Amendment rights. A 2018 draft IRS legal memo, the contents of which became public in 2019, concluded that the IRS must provide the requested tax returns to Congress unless Trump invokes executive privilege, contradicting the administration's justification for defying the earlier subpoena.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: On May 10, 2019, Neal issued a separate subpoena to the Treasury Department and the IRS for six years of Trump's personal and business tax returns. Neal said the committee wanted the tax records to evaluate "the extent to which the I.R.S. audits and enforces the federal tax laws against a president". On July 30, 2021, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel wrote an opinion concluding that the committee's request was legitimate and the IRS must provide the information sought, but on August 4, Trump's legal team opined that the committee should stop investigating Trump's affairs, arguing that Neal's "requests have always been a transparent effort by one political party to harass an official from the other party because they dislike his politics and speech."


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: On August 9, 2022, a three-judge panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals said Neal's request was valid. Trump appealed to the full court, but on October 27, it denied his request for a rehearing. On October 31, Trump appealed to the Supreme Court. On November 1, Chief Justice John Roberts granted a temporary hold, giving the Supreme Court until November 10 to consider the matter. On November 22, the Supreme Court ruled that the IRS could release the tax returns to the House Ways and Means committee. On November 30, the Treasury Department sent six years of tax returns to the Committee.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: On April 15, 2019, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Representative Elijah Cummings, issued a subpoena to the accounting firm Mazars USA, LLP, requesting tax records and other "financial documents concerning the President and his companies covering years both before and during his presidency." Cummings identified four areas that the committee aimed to investigate through the subpoena: (1) whether Trump "may have engaged in illegal conduct before and during his tenure in office"; (2) whether Trump "has undisclosed conflicts of interest that may impair his ability to make impartial policy decisions"; (3) whether Trump was complying with the Constitution's Foreign Emoluments Clause and Domestic Emoluments Clause; and (4) whether Trump "has accurately reported his finances to the Office of Government Ethics and other federal entities."


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: On March 3, 2021, the new chairwoman of the committee, Representative Carolyn Maloney, reissued the subpoena against Mazars USA after the initial subpoena for financial records, related to an investigation into Trump, expired at the end of 166th Congress.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: On September 12, 2022, Trump and the committee settled a civil suit about information from 2014–2018. Within several days, Mazars began providing Trump's financial records to the committee.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: The Trump administration refused to comply with the subpoenas. On May 6, 2019, after weeks of delay, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin sent a letter to House Ways and Means Committee chair Neal, asserting that the subpoena lacked "a legitimate legislative purpose" and that "the department may not lawfully fulfill the committee's request," although the IRS had released Richard Nixon's tax returns the same day Congress requested them in 1973. The Trump's administration's Justice Department, through a memo written by Office of Legal Counsel head Steven Engel, issued an opinion supporting Mnuchin's refusal to release Trump's tax returns. This triggered a legal battle between the administration and Congress. Neal criticized the administration's position, saying that its objections "lack merit" and "judicial precedent commands that none of the concerns raised can legitimately be used to deny the committee's request."


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: On April 7, 2019, Mick Mulvaney, Trump's acting White House chief of staff, said Trump's tax returns will "never" be released. Trump and Mulvaney have argued that voters have no interest in Trump's tax returns and that the issue had been "litigated" when Trump was elected.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: On May 7, 2019, "The New York Times" revealed that it had acquired information about Trump's tax returns showing more than a billion dollars in business losses with a decade in the red.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: In April 2019, a Trump adviser speaking on condition of anonymity told Fox News that Trump has repeatedly questioned his aides about the status of the congressional request, and also asked about the "loyalty" of top IRS officials. Trump appointee Michael J. Desmond, who as Chief Counsel of the IRS and Assistant General Counsel in the Department of the Treasury is responsible for giving legal advice to the IRS commissioner, previously served as a tax advisor to the Trump Organization and also worked alongside two other longtime tax advisors to the Trump Organization. According to "The New York Times", on February 5, 2019, Trump asked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to speed up Desmond's confirmation and indicating that confirming Desmond was a higher priority to him than confirming William Barr for Attorney General.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: Trump and his White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, said Trump would not release his tax returns while they are under audit, although nothing precludes a person from releasing tax returns that are under audit, a fact reaffirmed by IRS Commissioner Rettig. Sanders also opined that Congress is not "smart enough" to examine Trump's tax returns, although ten members of Congress are accountants, including three Certified Public Accountants.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: On April 10, 2019, Trump made a partially false statement that "there's no law whatsoever" requiring him to provide Congress his tax returns. While there is no law requiring Trump to publicly release his tax returns, federal law of IRS Code section 6103(f) does require Trump's (or anyone else's) tax returns to be given to Congress if they request it.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: On July 29, 2019, a career IRS official filed a whistleblower complaint with the House Ways and Means Committee, Senate Finance Committee, and Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, stating that at least one Treasury Department official had inappropriately interfered in the audit process for the tax returns of the president and vice president, which takes place annually in accordance with IRS policy. The possibility that political appointees interfered with audits conducted by career civil servants alarmed former IRS officials and legal experts. Due to stringent laws regarding disclosure of tax information, the details of the complaint have not been made public. However, Representative Richard Neal, the Democratic chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, said in September 2019 that he was consulting legal counsel on whether the whistleblower's complaint could be publicly released.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: The whistleblower's report was referred to by Neal and other House Democrats in the federal lawsuit regarding Trump's refusal to comply with a House Ways and Means Committee subpoena for the returns; in a filing, Neal wrote that the whistleblower's complaint presents credible evidence of potential inappropriate efforts to influence "the mandatory audit program" and raises "serious and urgent concerns", thereby bolstering the committee's case for obtaining the tax returns.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: On May 17, 2019, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin again refused to hand over the records subpoenaed by the House Committee on Ways and Means. The IRS refusal to provide the records sought was based on an opinion of Office of Legal Counsel Steven Engel dated June 2019 which argued that the House lacked a "legitimate legislative purpose" to warrant receiving the information.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: On July 2, 2019, the Committee sued Mnuchin and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig to enforce the subpoena and obtain six years of Trump's tax returns. The action, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia before Judge Trevor McFadden, was taken pursuant to Internal Revenue Code Section 6103(f) which states that the Treasury Department “shall furnish” any tax return requested in writing by the Ways & Means Committee. Trump was added to the case as an intervenor. In September 2019, a bipartisan group of six former general counsels to the House of Representatives filed an amicus brief in the case, urging the court to reject Trump's claims that the House lacks standing to bring the case. In January 2020, the judge stayed proceedings in the case, pending the resolution of the "" case by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: On March 4, 2021, the Department of Justice (DOJ), representing the Treasury Department, requested an additional month to determine its response to the Committee’s request for Trump’s tax returns. Judge McFadden granted the government more time and ordered the parties to submit a status report on March 31. On July 30, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel Dawn Johnsen wrote an opinion stating that the Treasury Department must turn over Trump's tax returns to the Committee, stating that the Committee had "invoked sufficient reasons" to request the tax information, reversing Engel's June 2019 opinion. Johnsen wrote that Engel's opinion "failed to afford the Committee the respect due to a coordinate branch of government." On August 4, Trump's legal team intervened in the case in an attempt to end the Committee's investigations into Trump's affairs, arguing that his tax returns are still "the subject of ongoing examinations by the IRS", that they should be permanently blocked from being released, and that Trump's legal expenses in the matter should be reimbursed.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: Judge McFadden dismissed the case in December 2021, allowing the returns to be released to the Committee, stating Trump was "wrong on the law" and that Congress is due "great deference" in its inquiries. McFadden granted a 14-day delay in the release of the returns to allow the parties to negotiate terms of the release, or for Trump to appeal to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Trump's lawyers filed a notice of appeal hours after the ruling.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: On May 20, 2019, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, refused a request by Trump's attorneys to quash the subpoena from the House Oversight Committee directed to Trump's accounting firm, Mazars USA LLP, ruling that the subpoena must be complied with. The district court held that the subpoena was well within Congress's broad investigative powers and rejected Trump's claim that the subpoena to Mazars was "a usurpation of an exclusively executive or judicial function."


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: Trump then appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which heard oral argument on July 12, 2019, and then issued a ruling against Trump on October 11, 2019. In its 2–1 ruling, the court of appeals upheld the lower court's ruling, holding that "contrary to the President's arguments, the Committee possesses authority under both the House Rules and the Constitution to issue the subpoena" for eight years of tax returns to Mazars, and that Mazars therefore "must comply" with the subpoena. The 66-page majority opinion was written by Judge David S. Tatel, joined by Patricia A. Millett; Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee, dissented. Trump's motion for rehearing "en banc" (i.e., before the entire D.C. Circuit) was denied on November 13, 2019, on an 8–3 vote. The ruling was the second appeals court decision within ten days against Trump regarding release of his tax returns.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: Trump subsequently filed a petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United States, asking the Court to review the case. On December 13, 2019, the Supreme Court decided to review both the "Trump v. Mazars US, LLP" case (Supreme Court No. 19-715) and the "Trump v. Deutsche Bank AG" case (Supreme Court No. 19-760). The court consolidated them and indicated that they would be set for oral argument sometime in March 2020. The Second Circuit's mandate was stayed pending the Supreme Court's decision in the case. The Court's decision in the case is believed to be a likely landmark ruling on how far presidents may resist subpoenas or other demands for information from the Congress and from prosecutors.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: On July 9, 2020, the Supreme Court issued its 7–2 ruling, vacating the D.C. Circuit's decision and remanding the case for further review. This made it unlikely that the Trumps' taxes would be released before the election and the end of both his term and those of the 116th Congress. On July 20, 2020, the Supreme Court issued an unsigned order denying a motion by House Democrats to expedite the litigation in lower courts; the order reduced the likelihood that congressional investigators would obtain the tax records before the November election. Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that she would have granted the motion.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: On February 22, 2021, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the New York prosecutor to obtain Trump's tax returns, subject to grand jury secrecy rules that restrict their public release. The district attorney's office received the documents by February 25.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: In September 2019, "The New York Times" reported that in late August 2019, soon after opening an investigation into hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, the Manhattan district attorney's office, led by Cyrus R. Vance Jr., subpoenaed Trump's accounting firm, Mazars USA, for Trump's individual tax returns from January 2011 to August 2019 and corporate tax records for the Trump Organization. The "Times" reported in August 2020 that in 2019 the district attorney had also subpoenaed Trump's primary bank, Deutsche Bank, which complied with financial statements and other records Trump had provided when he sought loans from the bank. Citing grand jury secrecy rules, the district attorney did not reveal the scope of the investigation, but in court filings prosecutors stated that publicly available evidence regarding the conduct of Trump and his businesses would justify a grand jury investigation into tax fraud and financial crimes such as insurance fraud, falsification of business records, and other crimes.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: Trump sought to quash the subpoena in federal court, contending that a sitting president enjoys "absolute immunity from criminal process of any kind". In court filings in September 2019, New York prosecutors rejected Trump's claim of "sweeping immunity" from a criminal probe while he is in office, writing that Trump was "seeking to invent and enforce a new presidential 'tax return privilege', on the theory that disclosing information in a tax return will necessarily reveal information that will somehow impede the functioning of a President, sufficiently to meet the test of irreparable harm."


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: On October 7, 2019, Judge Victor Marrero of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York rejected Trump's effort to prevent his tax returns from being turned over to the New York grand jury, and ordered Trump comply with the subpoena. In a 75-page opinion, the court called Trump's contention an overreach of executive power that is "repugnant to the nation's governmental structure and constitutional values". Enforcement of the subpoena was temporarily delayed pending consideration by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Later the same month, oral argument before the Second Circuit took place before a three-judge panel of Chief Judge Robert A. Katzmann, Judge Denny Chin, and Judge Christopher F. Droney. Trump's private lawyer, William S. Consovoy, argued that a president enjoyed absolute "presidential immunity" from all investigation and criminal process while in office; responding to a hypothetical from the court, Consovoy said the president should be shielded even if he hypothetically committed murder on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. In response, counsel for the Manhattan district attorney's office told the court "there is no such thing as presidential immunity for tax returns" and noted that tax returns are frequently subpoenaed in financial investigations.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: On November 4, 2019, a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit ruled unanimously that Mazars must comply with the subpoena and hand over Trump's tax returns, saying that the president is not immune from "the enforcement of a state grand jury subpoena directing a third party to produce non-privileged material, even when the subject matter under investigation pertains to the President" and that a state grand jury may permissibly issue subpoenas "in aid of its investigation of potential crimes committed by persons within its jurisdiction, even if that investigation may in some way implicate the President". Noting that "the President concedes that his immunity lasts only so long as he holds office and that he could therefore be prosecuted after leaving office," the Second Circuit ruled that there "is no obvious reason why a state could not begin to investigate a President during his term and, with the information secured during that search, ultimately determine to prosecute him after he leaves office."


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: Trump subsequently filed a petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court, asserting that the grand-jury subpoena directed to him violates Article II and the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. In December 2019, the Court agreed to hear the appeal. After oral arguments were delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the case was argued on May 12, 2020. On July 9, 2020, the Supreme Court issued its 7–2 ruling, holding (in an opinion written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.) that "Article II and the supremacy clause of the Constitution do not categorically preclude, or require a heightened standard for, the issuance of a state criminal subpoena to a sitting president." Roberts wrote: "No citizen, not even the president, is categorically above the common duty to produce evidence when called upon in a criminal proceeding." The court thus rejected Trump's claim that he was absolutely immune from the New York grand jury criminal subpoenas, but allowed Trump to return to the lower court to make a different argument for withholding his returns, such as scope or relevance.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: On remand to the District Court, Trump's attorneys argued that the subpoena was "wildly overbroad" and issued in bad faith. On August 20, 2020, Judge Marrero rejected this argument, again ordering that Trump’s tax returns be turned over to prosecutors. Trump's attorneys immediately requested an emergency stay, which Marrero denied. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit granted a stay to Trump on September 1, 2020, and oral argument before that court was held on September 25, 2020. During the hearing, the three judges appeared skeptical of Trump's central argument that the subpoena constituted an overbroad "fishing expedition." On October 7, 2020, the Court ruled in favor of Vance, but six days later Trump filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court, requesting a stay of the appeals court decision pending a hearing by the Supreme Court. On February 22, 2021, the Supreme Court denied the stay request, clearing the path for Trump’s tax records as well as other records to be released to prosecutors for review by a grand jury. Within hours of the Supreme Court’s ruling, Mazars handed over to Vance millions of pages of documents containing Trump's tax returns from January 2011 to August 2019, as well as financial statements, engagement agreements, documents relating to the preparation and review of tax returns, and work papers and communications related to the tax returns.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: In a separate action, on February 19, 2021, the Manhattan district attorney’s office subpoenaed the New York City Tax Commission, suggesting it sought to examine the real estate values Trump had claimed related to his property taxes.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: On July 30, 2019, California governor Gavin Newsom signed the Presidential Tax Transparency and Accountability Act (S.B. 27), a law requiring candidates for president and California governor, as a condition for gaining California ballot access, to release their most recent five years of federal tax returns at least 98 days ahead of the primary election (which would be November 26, 2019, for the 2020 primaries, since the California primary is on March 3, 2020).


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: Trump immediately sued the State of California, seeking to block implementation of the law, asserting that the law is unconstitutional. On September 19, 2019, U.S. District Judge Morrison C. England issued a temporary injunction blocking the law from taking effect. California appealed; California Secretary of State Alex Padilla said: "Our elected leaders have a legal and moral obligation to be transparent with voters about potential conflicts of interest. This law is fundamental to preserving and protecting American democracy." In December 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dismissed California's appeal of the federal district court decision as moot, in light of the California Supreme Court's decision (see below).


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: The law was separately challenged in state court, and in November 2019, the California Supreme Court unanimously invalidated the law, meaning that Trump did not have to release his tax returns to get on the primary ballot in California in 2020. Chief Justice Tani Gorre Cantil-Sakauye wrote that "The Legislature may well be correct that a presidential candidate's income tax returns could provide California voters with important information" but that the requirement to release the returns conflicted with the California Constitution's "specification of an inclusive open presidential primary ballot".


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: In May 2019, the New York State Senate passed the TRUST Act, which would amend state law to permit the commissioner of the state Department of Taxation and Finance to release any state tax return requested by the leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee or the Joint Committee on Taxation for any "specific and legitimate legislative purpose." The New York State Assembly approved the bill on May 22, sending it to the governor. On July 8, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo signed the bill.


title: Tax returns of Donald Trump

text: Trump sued the State and the House Ways and Means Committee fifteen days later to block release of the tax returns. In November 2019, Trump's suit was dismissed on personal jurisdiction grounds.


title: Kidsongs

text: Kidsongs is an American children's media franchise that includes Kidsongs Music Video Stories on DVD and video, The Kidsongs TV Show, CDs of favorite children's songs, song books, sheet music, toys and an ecommerce website. It was created by producer/writer Carol Rosenstein and director Bruce Gowers of Together Again Video Productions (TAVP), both of whom are music video and television production veterans. The duo had produced and directed over 100 music videos for Warner Bros. Records (WBR) and took their idea of music videos for children to the record label. Warner Brothers funded the first video, "A Day at Old MacDonald's Farm". Shortly thereafter, a three-way partnership between TAVP, WBR and View-Master Video was formed with TAVP being responsible for production and WBR and View-Master responsible for distribution to video and music stores, and toy stores respectively.


title: Kidsongs

text: The home video series was launched with four Kidsongs Music Video Stories episodes at New York's Toy Fair on January 1, 1985. "A Day at Old MacDonald's Farm" was one of those first four and has sold over 4 million copies and won the Vira Award. Each half-hour Music Video Stories episode features 10 to 15 songs, in a music video style production starring children. They sing and dance their way through well-known children's songs, nursery rhymes, and covers of pop hits from the '50s, '60s and '70s— as well as Mitch Miller, Boxcar Willie, and Riders in the Sky songs all tied together by a simple story and theme.


title: Kidsongs

text: The TAVP/WBR/View-Master Video (Viewmaster was acquired by Tyco Toys in 1989–95) partnership produced 16 Kidsongs episodes of the Music Video Stories. In 1995, WBR and TAVP bought out Tyco's distribution rights and produced three more View-Master videos called "Country Sing-Along", Billy Biggle's Favorite Songs and "Boppin' with the Biggles" in 1994, and two KidVision videos called "Let's Put on a Show" & "Baby Animal Songs" in 1995, as part of a new venture with another division of Warner Bros.--Warner Vision. In 1997, TAVP acquired all rights from WBR/Warner Vision and became the sole owner of all Kidsongs properties.


title: Kidsongs

text: Later in 1997, TAVP entered into a distribution/production agreement with Sony Wonder, which resulted in the production of four more titles called "I Can Dance!", "I Can Do It!", "Adventures in Biggleland: Billy's Birthday" and "Adventures in Biggleland: Meet the Biggles". That agreement ended on July 1, 1998, and in 2002, distribution rights were licensed by RLJE Films, who continues to distribute the videos.


title: Kidsongs

text: From September 1, 1985, to August 5, 1999, Kidsongs home video episodes encompassing 300 children's songs, nursery rhymes, and cover versions of pop hits from the '50s to the '90s were produced, featuring a variety of topics that are of interest to kids: animals, birthdays, the zoo, sports, summer camp, fantasy, vehicles, and general silliness. 14 have been certified platinum by the RIAA, with 5 of them having sold more than 2 million copies. As of now, the videos have sold over 19.5 million copies.