Donald Trump may have arranged himself a 11-figure payday after his own tax office signalled they would settle a lawsuit with him.
The US president and two of his sons have sued the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for $US10 billion ($14 billion) after his tax information was leaked to the media in 2018 and 2020.
Today both Trump and the IRS asked a court to grant a 90-day extension so they could resolve the matter.
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"The extension will promote judicial economy and allow the Parties to explore avenues that could narrow or resolve the issues efficiently," the statement to court read.
Given the president has appointed the senior staff at the IRS and the Department of Treasury and has the power to fire them, the lawsuit has raised the ire of ethics watchdogs.
One such group, Democracy Forward, has filed a brief opposing the lawsuit.
Democracy Forward CEO Skye Perryman said Trump was "seeking to further illegally line his own pockets at the public's expense".
"The president's corruption continues, this time in an attempt to take $10 billion dollars of the taxpayers' money, which threatens to make a mockery out of our justice system," Perryman said.
"Not only does the president's baseless case have significant legal defects, but there are colossal conflicts of interest at play."
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Trump had already claimed to have won the lawsuit in the days after it was filed.
"Essentially, the lawsuit's been won. I guess I won a lotta money," he said.
A former IRS contractor has already been jailed over the leak, which exposed Trump's claims of incredible business success to be in part, false.
Some years Trump paid nothing in taxes because of the vast amount of money he had lost in bad investments.
The year he ran for president he paid barely $1000 in taxes.
In February Trump suggested he might make a contribution to charity with the money he was getting from the taxpayer.
"We could make it a substantial amount," he said.
"Nobody would care because it's going to go to numerous very good charities."
Trump has a long history of promising money to charities and then not paying.
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Senator Elizabeth Warren has now introduced a bill that would stop Trump profiting from suing his own agency.
"Right out in the open, Donald Trump is suing his own IRS to try to steal $10 BILLION taxpayer dollars," she said on Bluesky.
"I just introduced a bill that would make this theft ILLEGAL."
The subject of Trump's tax returns has been a long running source of scrutiny and criticism.
Presidential candidates have for decades released their tax returns to the public.
In 2016, Trump broke that tradition on the justification that he was being audited.
There is no legal reason why a person being audited cannot do so.
Ten years later, he has still not voluntarily released any tax returns.
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