Release your federal income tax returns, Mr. Trump. The American public deserves to know what you have been up to if they are to seriously consider electing you president.

Allowing public inspection of the returns was the right thing to do before. All presidential candidates in the modern era have done so. But given the news that came out over the weekend, it is now vitally important you do so.

Anonymously mailed some of Donald Trump’s past tax records, The New York Times reported over the weekend that a series of business disasters in the 1990s, including mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos and his calamitous decision to purchase the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, allowed Trump to declare a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns.

What is the significance of that? Well, according to tax experts The Times consulted with, it likely meant he avoided paying a dime in personal income taxes for 18 years. Not bad for a guy living a lavish lifestyle and flying around in his own plane.

Trump has complained that the Internal Revenue Service is always auditing his returns. No wonder, if his tax attorneys are pushing the envelope in terms of tax avoidance. The public deserves to learn exactly how this all worked. Trump’s explanation that he can’t release returns that are being audited is an empty excuse. There is no prohibition against releasing returns subject to an audit.

So what if he avoided paying taxes, say Trump’s defenders. Don’t all of us try to pay the lowest tax we can?

But all of us are not running for president. Voters deserve to know how someone used the outrageous tax loopholes available to commercial real estate developers to continue living the good life even as blue-collar contractors went unpaid because of Trump affiliates going bankrupt.

These tax rules are win-win for real estate speculators, like Trump, allowing them to use partnerships and limited liability companies to insulate their personal wealth, yet using the losses to cancel out income on their personal returns.

So doesn’t this make Trump the perfect guy to fix the problem?

Arguably, except that his tax plans would not close a single loophole that benefits him and businessmen like him. Indeed, it would improve their lot in life, lowering the tax rate to 15 percent for the LLCs and partnerships.

If Trump truly wants to do some practical vetting, he will release his tax returns as every presidential candidate has done for 40 years so that voters can vet his suitability to administer the most powerful position in the world.

What about his opponent’s tax returns?

As noted previously, Bill and Hillary Clinton released their joint tax returns for 2015, as the couple has done going back to 1977. They made $10.6 million in adjusted gross income, down from $28 million in 2014. They paid an effective rate of 34 percent last year, about the same as a year before and about 8 percent higher than the average in their income bracket.

They gave about 10 percent of their income to charity.

Clinton’s vice presidential candidate, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, released his returns. The Virginia senator and his wife, Anne Holton, Virginia’s secretary of education until she stepped down in July, reported income of $313,441 for 2015. They paid a federal effective tax rate of 20.3 percent.

So did Trump’s VP pick, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence. He and his wife, Karen, reported bringing in $113,026 in adjusted gross income in 2015, with most of it coming from Pence’s income as governor. They paid $8,956 in federal income taxes, giving them an effective income tax rate of 8 percent, keeping their rate low through a variety of tax breaks and losses they claimed.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal income tax system remains largely progressive, with the Top 1 percent paying an effective tax rate of 34 percent, the middle-income paying a rate of about 14 percent and the lowest income quintile about 3 percent.

Yet there are problems that leave the system open to abuse, as The Times’ reporting illustrates. In evaluating who might be motivated to close the loopholes — or not — voters have the right to assess the tax returns of presidential candidates.

Once again we urge Mr. Trump to turn over his tax-return documents going back at least several years.