DThe Treasury Department must submit the tax returns of former President Donald Trump to Congress. The Justice Department decided on Friday that the House of Representatives committee responsible for budget and tax policy has legitimate reasons to examine Trump’s financial documents. A committee called the “Methods and Means Committee” has sued for the transfer of documents.
The Democratic Chairman of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, Talking about the “victory of the rule of law.” “Getting the tax returns of former President Trump is a national security issue.” American citizens deserve “facts about his disturbing conflicts of interest”, which “undermined our security and democracy during his presidency, “Pelosi added.
For Trump, the ruling is the second legal setback of the year: In February, the Supreme Court refused to block the transfer of withholding tax returns to Manhattan’s prosecutor Cyrus Vance. Vance has now received Trump’s 2011 tax return. However, publications in this case are excluded because they need to be kept confidential.
This may change now. If the tax return is submitted to a committee of the House of Representatives, the likelihood of disclosure is much higher because the agency can vote on it. Trump can appeal the recent decision of the Justice Department.
At the same time, the fundraising committee, which oversees the U.S. tax agency, requested that Trump’s tax returns for the six years before he took over the White House. Richard Neal, chairman of the Democratic Committee, believes that members should be able to understand how the U.S. Revenue Service reviews the president’s records and whether Trump “improperly influenced” the agency.
Trump is the first president since Richard Nixon (1969-1974) refused to disclose his tax return. This leads people to speculate about what the real estate entrepreneur has to hide. For example, he is far less successful than he claims. There is also speculation that there may be a conflict of interest. The New York Times reported in September 2020 that Trump did not pay federal income tax in 11 of the 18 years from 2000 to 2017—and in 2016 and 2017, he paid only $750 a year.
