(CNN) Donald Trump on Wednesday released a letter from his tax attorneys attesting that the GOP presidential front-runner's tax filings from 2009 and onward are still being audited by the Internal Revenue Service.
The IRS has, however, completed audits of Trump's tax returns through his 2008 filing. Trump's tax returns have been audited by the IRS each year since 2002, the letter said, and Trump's tax returns between those years "have been closed administratively by agreement with the IRS without assessment or payment, on a net basis, of any deficiency," the lawyers stated.
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"Examinations for returns for the 2009 year and forward are ongoing. Your returns for these years report items that are attributable to continuing transactions or activities that were also reported on returns for 2008 and earlier. In this sense, the pending examinations are continuous of prior, closed examinations," Trump's tax attorneys Sheri Dillon and William Nelson said in their letter addressed to Trump.
The letter, published about a month after 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney needled Trump about his tax returns, casts doubt over whether Trump will release tax returns for any recent years during the presidential campaign. Trump has argued that he would not do so until the IRS completes its audit, though there is no law preventing Trump from doing so.
The lawyers also explained that Trump has been audited on such a consistent basis because his "personal tax returns are inordinately large and complex for an individual," a practice the lawyers described as "consistent with the IRS's practice for large and complex businesses."
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The letter, dated March 7, was released hours after Trump bungled a response to a question about abortion.
Trump suggested earlier on Wednesday that, should abortion be outlawed, women who undergo the procedure should face "some form of punishment."
Hours later, amidst an uproar from both the left and the right, Trump walked back that comment and said doctors who perform the procedure -- and not the women themselves -- should face legal penalties.