I thought so too. Despite anyone’s feelings on Trump, I think it is very dangerous for Congress to release anyone’s tax return for effectively political capital. Are you OK with AOC releasing Zuckerberg’s tax return as part of her grandstanding during the hearings? Are you OK with Congress releasing YOUR tax returns because they feel it is the right thing to do? Note that YOUR is to the reader, not necessarily slicedalone.
Or is it ok to do it to only Trump because you don’t like him, legality be damned.
Custom does not make it a legal requirement. As I recall when this first came up, many people did not distinguish between the two.
I’m pretty sure “no supporting documentation” isn’t irregular at all, you typically wouldn’t provide most supporting documentation unless you were audited.
I would think Zuckerberg would take that issue to the courts and probably win because AFAIK he’s not running for office and the public doesn’t necessarily have an interest in what’s in his returns unless he’s suspected of a financial crime. But IANAL.
On another note, why weren’t Trump’s taxes audited by the IRS in the many years he’s probably been cheating on his taxes and wasn’t president or even a candidate? Like, maybe even back when Bill Clinton or Bush II were president? They probably wouldn’t have had any personal or political interest in either investigating or nixing an investigation into Trump’s taxes at that time. Is it because the IRS knew Trump would sue the shit out of them?
Again, I start from the premise that everything Congress does should, by default, be done with transparency. If they’re using information to decide what laws to pass, then we, the public, have a right to know what that information is, so we can know whether they’re passing laws in our interest or not. There are obviously exceptions to this, for things like classified material, but I do not think that any of those exceptions apply here. The only reason for them to not release Trump’s returns are partisan politics, and I am glad that they chose to not use the returns for political purposes.
Personally, I’d be in favor of everyone’s tax returns being made public information, so long as the SS numbers are all redacted. If I was running for public office, then of course I’d make them public. If I spent months and months lying about them being under audit (not true, in DJT’s case) and that I could not release them (also a lie) but would otherwise be happy to do so (also a lie) then I’d be in a poor position to complain if they were made public.
After years of watching this fascist use the levers of power to go after his enemies, I don’t feel the least bit sorry for him and don’t blame the Democrats for turning the tables on him.
Since he’ll continue lying about it like he lies about everything else, publicizing the information is a preemptive measure. True, his fanatical core followers won’t believe it anyway, but there are many people who will be influenced by the facts.
I’m a little torn. My initial reaction to the news that they planned to release his returns was, “Oh no. This will not end well.”
My reservations: this will feed into the narrative that Congress only asked for the returns in order to release them and “embarrass” TFG. Anyone who is interested already saw tons of return info from the Times article a couple years ago, and everyone else will ignore the new information and reflexively call foul. This will spawn an entire “whatabout” war. There should be an expectation of privacy unless there is a solid reason to overcome that expectation. Congress didn’t need to release the taxes in order to use them to craft new legislation to strengthen the guardrails.
But…
Underneath all of my reservations I’m itching to see them myself. I’m giddy at the thought that the Orange Menace might be embarrassed. I’m outraged to find out that the IRS didn’t do the mandatory audits required by law for sitting presidents. I believe that the custom of releasing returns when running for office should be made into a law requiring it.
My God everybody, you can literally look up the tax returns of every president since Richard Nixon. Why do you think Donald Trump deserves such special treatment that he should not have his released like all the other presidents?
These privacy concerns are irrelevant, given the position they are elected to. If you cannot prove to the American public that you do not cheat the American government, you do not deserve to be on the ballot.
Here: Reagan’s 1981 return. To reiterate: why does Donald Trump again deserve special treatment?
My first instinct with no data would have been to grudgingly not release them. But in this particular case, having seen the information that has been released so far, I would probably have made the same choice as the committee.
Just the information that the IRS did not perform the mandatory audits or even begin them until Congress checked in on them or the scores of lies and oversight mishaps shows that we really need to expose things to the light of day.
Yes, some folks will take only a prurient interest in them, but that’s not enough of a reason not to do it.
This is an excellent question. The answer, I believe, is that the Republican Right is funded and run by the fabulously rich power brokers that actually run this country. They can literally do whatever they want without consequence and, accordingly, so can their flag ship leader. This publicizing his tax returns issue is probably the least of it.
Trump has leveraged massive losses he accumulated over the years to zero out his tax liabilities, as previously shown by a New York Times investigation. For example, the JCT noted that Trump carried forward $105 million in losses on his 2015 return, $73 million in 2016, $45 million in 2017 and $23 million in 2018.
“It’s the 2,000-pound gorilla. … He still uses the net operating losses” to reduce his tax liability, said Steven M. Rosenthal, senior fellow in the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute.
And once again, in 2020, as the pandemic raged on, Trump reported a loss of nearly $5 million. He paid $0 in federal income taxes that year.
You want the job, there are things you have to do which aren’t required by law, but by custom.
If you want the job as JC Penney head of sales in Chicago in 1961 (my dad), your wife (my mom) had to put on a personal lunch, in her own home, for the other sales executives wives. No law, just custom. But it had to be done… and a good report given back to their husbands… for my Dad to get the job.
Same thing here. If you want to run the country, you should be willing to release your taxes as to prove that you’re not cheating the country that you want to run. Every President in my life has done so: no law, just custom. Donald Trump does not get to declare that he gets to be the exception.
In principle, I agree with you. But when one side refuses to abide by rules, customs, and traditions and seeks unlimited power unfettered by the wishes of the electorate, then I say fight them on an equal basis. I don’t want to tell my grandchildren that we let democracy died because we allowed one side to fight dirty and we refused to engage them…
I would also, @Napier, like to note that Donald Trump went through 3 years of Due Process making the very arguments being made here to keep them secret, and the Supreme Court itself… a court in which 1/3 of them were appointed by Trump… said that he had no right to keep them away from us.
These very questions have been asked and answered in our courts, and here we are. And given that the house Ways and Means Committee does have the legal authority to release any tax documents to the American public that they wish to, I believe the question is settled.