Committee Votes To Make Donald Trump’s Taxes Public After Years-Long Legal Battle
December 26, 2022 by Maria Pierides
Are things starting to fall apart for Donald Trump? Possibly, as the US House Ways and Means Committee voted this week to release the former president’s tax returns in the next few days, while also taking shots at the IRS for failing to properly audit his taxes while he was in office!
Trump broke decades of precedent as a presidential candidate in 2016 when he refused to release his tax forms to the public. And now the committee has voted to release the records for public viewing, the 76-year-old twice-impeached former president could be in big trouble!
The committee voted 24-16 in favor (with all Republicans on the panel opposed) of releasing the records on Tuesday, December 20th in a closed-door session. Following the November midterm elections, the House of Representatives is set to shift to Republican control in January, so many saw this as the last chance for the Democratic-led group to address the issue. And you can see why, as Republicans are not pleased with the decision and have blasted the Democrats for what could follow. “We urge Democrats to turn back while they still can,” said Texas Republican Representative Kevin Brady. “If they make private tax information public today, it will be a regrettable stain on this committee and Congress, and will make American politics even more divisive and disheartening.”
Brady also warned that the Democrats were about to unleash the power “to target and make public the tax returns of private citizens, political enemies, business and labor leaders, or even the Supreme Court justices themselves. No party in Congress should hold that power.” He added: “It is the power to embarrass, harass, or destroy a private citizen through disclosure of their tax returns. After nearly half a century, the political enemies list is back in Washington, D.C. And we worry this will unleash a cycle of political retribution in Congress.”
Richard Neal, Springfield Democrat and the committee chair maintains that “this is about the presidency, not the president,” and has proposed a new bill off the back of this investigation that would require the IRS to launch an audit of the president’s tax returns within 90 days of inauguration, rather than the two years it took for the IRS to start looking into Trump’s taxes. Not only would the president be required to submit the necessary documents, but the IRS would be required to make them public. “This takes care of ending any potential confusion or chicanery as it relates to the audit program,” Neal said.
It’s not clear yet what new information will be unearthed when the returns are released, as the New York Times already published extensive reports in 2018 and 2020 based on leaked tax information. According to the 2020 report, Trump paid only $750 in income tax in both 2016 and 2017, with no income tax at all in 10 of the last 15 years having claimed millions of dollars in losses. His businesses did well in 2018/19 which gave him a $1.1M tax bill, however as the pandemic hit in 2020 he reported huge losses again of $5M which meant he actually paid $0 in income tax in his final year as president.
At the time, Trump denied these findings, saying, “it’s fake news, it’s totally fake news. Made up. Fake.” However, Neal reflected on how the report highlighted the inequality in US society. “This reporting shines a stark light on the vastly different experience people with power and influence have when interacting with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) than the average American taxpayer does.” He finished by saying, “It appears that the president has gamed the tax code to his advantage and used legal fights to delay or avoid paying what he owes.” Is this just the way of business or did the former president have something to hide by not releasing these figures sooner?
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