As promised, as their last act before the new Congress is sworn in next week, the House Ways and Means Committee have made Donald Trump's tax returns public.
Six years of former President Donald Trump’s federal tax returns, long shrouded in secrecy, were released to the public on Friday by the House Ways and Means Committee, the culmination of a battle over their disclosure that went to the Supreme Court.
The returns – spanning the years 2015 through 2020 – were obtained by the Democratic-run committee only a few weeks ago after a protracted legal battle. The committee voted last week to release the tax returns, but their release was delayed to redact sensitive personal information like Social Security numbers.
CNN is currently reviewing the tax returns.
The release of the tax returns follows a years-long pursuit for documents that had typically been made public voluntarily by past US presidents. Trump and his legal team continuously sought to keep his returns secret, arguing that Congress had never wielded its legislative powers to demand a president’s tax returns, which Trump said could have far-reaching implications.
Trump released a campaign video Friday responding to the decision to release his tax returns, calling the move an “outrageous abuse of power” and “completely unconstitutional.”
“There is no legitimate legislative purpose for their action. And if you look at what they’ve done, it’s so sad for our country,” Trump said. “It’s nothing but another deranged political witch hunt which has been going on from the day I came down an escalator in Trump Tower.”
Other Republicans also criticized Democrats’ efforts in pursuit of the tax returns as political, with Texas Rep. Kevin Brady – the committee’s top conservative – saying a release would amount to “a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond the former president and overturns decades of privacy protections for average Americans that have existed since the Watergate reform.”
The committee, which is responsible for overseeing the IRS and writing tax policy, requested the returns under the authority of section 6103 of the US tax code. Their report focused primarily on whether Trump’s tax returns during his time in office were properly audited under the IRS’ mandatory audit program for US presidents.
The committee found that the IRS opened only one “mandatory” audit during Trump’s term – for his 2016 tax return. And that didn’t take place until the fall of 2019, after Chairman Richard Neal, a Massachusetts Democrat, first sent a letter asking the IRS for Trump’s returns and tax information. The report characterizes the presidential audit program as “dormant.”
Trump hid his taxes, unlike every other single White House occupant since Nixon. He ordered the IRS not to audit him, which is against all regulations, created for this very reason.
We're about to find out why. Hopefully the Senate Finance Committee will grab the baton and run with it.
We'll see.
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