ANALYSIS/OPINION:

What is in Vermont Sen. Bernard Sanders‘ tax returns that he doesn’t want the public to see?

Mr. Sanders‘ wife, Jane, went on CNN Tuesday and told Wolf Blitzer the campaign wouldn’t be releasing any further tax returns until rival Hillary Clinton released the transcripts of her paid Wall Street speeches.

The statement directly contradicted her husband, who promised to release years of returns in the last Democratic debate, when pressed on the issue.

“Of course we will release our taxes,” Mr. Sanders said then. “Jane does our taxes. We’ve been a little bit busy lately. You’ll excuse us.”

After the debate, Mr. Sanders released his 2014 returns, which were fairly innocuous. In that return, he and his wife reported about $200,000 of income, mostly from his Senate post, paying a 13.4 percent tax rate. The couple made about $8,000 in charitable donations, according to the seven-page document released by the campaign.

“What’s interesting is we released the 2014, Secretary Clinton hasn’t released the transcript yet,” Mrs. Sanders told CNN Tuesday, when pressed as to why the campaign hasn’t released further returns. “Why don’t we wait to see what happens.”

All tax returns of Mrs. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, since 1992 are publicly available. She challenged the Vermont senator during the last debate to release further returns, for the sake of transparency, .

“I’ve released 30 years of tax returns,” Mrs. Clinton said at the debate. “And I think every candidate, including Senator Sanders and Donald Trump, should do the same.”

Mr. Trump has refused to release any of his returns, citing IRS audits.

But it’s curious as to why Mr. Sanders won’t. Two weeks ago, on Bloomberg’s “All Due Respect,” Mrs. Sanders said the campaign would be willing to release more returns, commenting “sure, yes.”

It looks like Mr. Sanders is going to try to run out the clock before he has to release more returns. Mrs. Clinton is expected to win the five Northeastern states holding primaries Tuesday further, narrowing Mr. Sanders‘ path to the White House. The New York Times reported Mr. Sanders‘ team was going to “reassess” his campaign after Tuesday’s votes, but Mrs. Sanders‘ shot down those rumors on MSNBC, saying they were in it until the convention.

If that’s the case, they’re going to have to release more tax returns than 2014.