Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton spar over emails and tax returns

Washington: With the race to the White House intensifying, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and her Republican rival Donald Trump have accused each other of trying to "hide something" from the public.

While Clinton charged Trump with not releasing his tax returns as he had to "hide something" from the people, the Republican nominee accused the former secretary of state of the same over the emails deleted by her during her tenure as the top American diplomat.

Clinton, 68, indicated she will make Trump's tax returns an election issue, saying the reality TV star is "dead wrong" if he thinks it is none of the American people's business as before entrusting a president with the country's finances they would want to know how the person handled personal finances.

"I just want to start by referencing something that Donald Trump told ABC News. He said that the American people don't care about his tax returns. In fact, he has also said it is none of our business. I just think he is dead wrong.

"The reason presidential candidates, going back decades, have released their tax returns is because the American people want to know," Clinton told reporters travelling with her on the campaign plane on Tuesday.

"If they are going to entrust a president with the management of our country's finances, they want to know, how did this person handle his or her own finances, which is one of the reasons why we've released 40 years of tax returns," she said.

"It's especially important given what we are discovering, not from Trump himself, but from the kind of work that many of you are doing and your outlets are doing. What have we learned? We have learned that Donald Trump has been bankrupt in his company six times.

"He has been sued about 4,000 times. He has been accused repeatedly of fraudulent behaviour," she alleged.

"Truly, the list goes on and on, the scams, the frauds, the questionable relationships, the business activities that have stiffed workers, refused to pay small businesses. So clearly his tax returns tell a story that an American people deserve and need to know.

"And his continuing claim that he can't release his tax returns because he is under audit has been disproved repeatedly," she said.

Meanwhile, Trump, 70, attacked Clinton over the email controversy.

"When is she going to release her emails? Let her release her emails and I'll release my tax returns immediately," he told Fox News last night.

Clinton in the past had said that she deleted some 30,000 emails which were personal related to things like yoga and marriage planning.

Trump says he does not believe this and has been seeking to find out those emails. Clinton "probably knows how to find them", he said.