Trump tax returns

[dasmoocher]

@KarlGauss

Not strictly relevant to this thread, but this piece from The Daily Beast on Trump’s taxes, Congress, and the law, by Pulitzer Prize winner David Clay Johnston, was really, really informative.

@BobLibDem

"
This is going to go to the courts. Nobody in Treasury is going to authorize their release, and if they refuse to do so and get in legal trouble, they will get a pardon. It will go to the Supreme Court, which will rule that the law and the demand for the returns is valid. Then the administration will continue to refuse to release them, ignoring the Supreme Court. Susan Collins will protest half-heartedly.

From the David Clay Johnston article:

Donald Trump and his top White House aide declare that the administration will not give the president’s tax returns to Congress, as required under a 1924 anti-corruption law. But both the Treasury secretary and the tax commissioner have been much more nuanced, saying that they will obey the law even as they delay actually doing so.

I know why Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Charles Rettig, the IRS commissioner, are so cautious. They don’t want to be removed from office and sent to prison for five years just for doing Trump’s bidding.

…

Congress earlier applied this law to Richard Nixon, who resigned in disgrace after a second audit of his returns showed he was a major league tax cheat. Nixon fabricated deductions worth more than $3.4 million in today’s money. Nixon got off with a pardon, while his tax lawyer went to prison.

The IRS had audited Nixon’s 1969 tax return but failed to catch major league cheating by the sitting president. Only when Congressional tax lawyers went over it, and the IRS did a second audit, did they spot blatant tax evasion.

…

Removal from office would require disclosures to future employers and investors, limit or block service on corporate boards and require disclosures to lenders. Even someone running a privately held company, as Trump still does, would be affected by heightened disclosure requirements.

Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs partner and savings and loan company chief executive, is only 56. Removal from office alone could mean an end to his big paydays in finance under existing regulations.

Rettig, 61, a tax lawyer whose specialty was helping wealthy tax dodgers who got caught in audits, could lose his California law license, especially were he to be convicted.

So, I guess in Nixon’s case, Congress was smart enough to understand tax returns. Of course, who knows what bullshit Trump has been filing. I’m sure it’s more than fake deductions.

And, as Johnston points out, would Mnuchin and Rettig want to jeopardize future income, even if they had a pardon? It would be interesting to see if their financial self-interest trumps (ha!) loyalty to the president, who has demonstrated no loyalty to anyone, including family.

I like the secondary headline in this article:

Michael Cohen Testifies That Trump Thinks Don Jr. Is Too Dumb to Be Trusted

The whole family is just Fredos all the way down.

Heh. Fredos. “I can handle things. I’m smart. Not like everybody says, like dumb. I’m smart and I want respect!”

[CaptMurdock]

@FlikTheBlue

If things go down that way, wouldn’t that be a constitutional crisis? I assume that the next step should things reach that point would be for John Roberts to issue cite Steve Mnuchin for contempt of court or to back down. Here’s how I see the options.

1a. John Roberts backs down. This is seen as admitting the SCOTUS is powerless.

1b. John Roberts cites Mnuchin as being in contempt of the SCOTUS, move on to 2.

2a. To enforce the contempt, Roberts orders federal marshals to arrest Mnuchin. The marshals refuse to do so, again basically neutering the SCOTUS.

2b. The marshals do arrest Mnuchin, or Mnuchin backs down before it gets to this point. I’m not sure I even want to think things would reach this point, or what would happen if they did. Would Trump try to resist by force? Either way, I think we would be moving into extremely dangerous territory.

ETA. I hope that Sanders resorting to name calling means that even Trump realizes how bad it would be if things went down this way, and that he is posturing for the sake of his base but already knows that he will give in before it gets this far.

We’re two years, five months and an odd number of days late to worry about that.

As for Roberts, I don’t see him “backing down.” He’s bound and determined that The Roberts Court is going to be historic, and not for the wrong reasons. To secure his legacy, he’ll thrown Trump under the nearest bus and provide him with a sack lunch and a flashlight.

[DrDeth]

@Czarcasm

Did Congress make it illegal for him to confirm or deny what the President has said publicly countless times, that he is under audit?

Huh? No Congress did not make any Trump specific law on tax returns. But the IRS cannot release any personal tax info, including whether or not a return is under audit or not. So the Comm cannot speak on whether or not Trump is under audit.

[Czarcasm]

@DrDeth

Huh? No Congress did not make any Trump specific law on tax returns. But the IRS cannot release any personal tax info, including whether or not a return is under audit or not. So the Comm cannot speak on whether or not Trump is under audit.

Trump has already claimed that he is under audit, so is there no private information that is released if they confirm what he says.

[DrDeth]

@Czarcasm

Trump has already claimed that he is under audit, so is there no private information that is released if they confirm what he says.

Yes, there is= 'confirming".

Read the Privacy Act someday. A lot lot of people would lose their jobs or go to prison.

Note that no expert is saying the IRS can confirm this, so this is some weird idea of just yours.

[Oly]

@Falchion

The letter from Trump’s tax attorneys back in March 2016 asserts that the returns that are being audited (i.e., 2009 forward) "report items that are attributable to continuing transactions or activities that were also reported on returns for 2008 and earlier. In this sense, the pending examinations are continuations of prior, closed examinations.

Ok, thanks. This is the kind of answer I was looking for.

[Oly]

@Buck_Godot

The reason no one has asked, (or the reason no one remembered it even though someone did ask) is that given that the audit excuse is itself an utter fabrication that has no merit, there is no reason that that question won’t just be waved away with a similar fabrication, resulting in no significant effect.

If no one asked Trump a question that there wasn’t a high probability would be “waved away with…fabrication”, how often do you think he’d be asked questions, who would ask them, and to what would those vanishingly rare questions pertain?

[PoppaSan]

@DrDeth

Yes, there is= 'confirming".

Read the Privacy Act someday. A lot lot of people would lose their jobs or go to prison.

Note that no expert is saying the IRS can confirm this, so this is some weird idea of just yours.

President’s tax returns are automatically auditted under IRS rules

The IRS… treats presidential and vice-presidential returns similarly to those of IRS employees, who also receive a mandatory audit. The procedures are spelled out in detail in Internal Revenue Manual Section 4.2.1.11:

So 2016-2018 returns are at the moment.

[bobot]

Are at the moment…what? Available to be released if Trump was honest?
(Boy, how long does a fucking audit take, am I right? Wink, wink.)
And the lying fuck isn’t locked down even if the fake audit was a real audit. He’s just a fucking liar.