That’s a great question. The answer is that there’s a ton of stuff that could be immediately checked by the relevant parties–if they wanted to do it.
So if he released fake returns saying he gave the American Cancer Society a million dollars, and he didn’t, they could call bullshit immediately. Or if he received money as income that didn’t appear on faked returns, the person generating that income could flag that as well. So the thing he’d most want to fake from a first-day press release standpoint–has he given even 0.00001% of his money to charity–would be tricky at best. Likewise his effective rate would be difficult to fake in either direction, because it would have to come from data (I was paid $A by B, I donated $X to Y), and the more data you make up the more likely you are to get caught.
The really deep-dive stuff, that could eventually demonstrate how many of his hundred partnerships end up being linked to Putin’s bagmen, might be easier to fake, since any shady partners would have no incentive to speak up.
*IANATL
