IRS Ordered to Release Trump Tax Returns

The controversy involving former president Donald Trump’s income tax returns continues. In the latest development, on July 30 the U.S Department of Justice (DOJ) ordered the IRS to hand over the returns to a House committee, citing “sufficient reasons” for the request.

The DOJ order follows various media reports that Trump purportedly attempted to pressure officials into claiming that the 2020 election was “corrupted.” Amidst the charges, Trump has accumulated a war chest of more than $100 million for a possible presidential bid in 2024. Some supporters of the ex-president have asserted that he will return to office in August, although there are no provisions in the Constitution to allow for such a remedy.

Throughout the campaign and during his tenure as president, Trump has steadfastly refused to release his tax returns to the public, as has been the standard practice among candidates for higher office for decades. Trump has stated that ongoing IRS audits are the reason for his refusal.

Top Democrats roundly applauded the DOJ’s action. “Access to former President Trump’s tax returns is a matter of national security,” said Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in a statement. ”The American people deserve to know the facts of his troubling conflicts of interest and undermining of our security and democracy as president.”

The Democrats in Congress ramped up efforts to force disclosure of then-president Trump’s tax return after the mid-term elections in 2018. Despite Trump drawing a line in the sand, the New York Times was able to obtain records which reportedly revealed that he had paid little tax, or no tax at all, in the years leading up to his term in the White House.

In a memo, the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) indicated that Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the chairperson of the House Ways & Means Committee, had invoked sufficient reasons for requesting the former president’s tax information. Accordingly, the IRS must comply with the request. Dawn Johnsen, acting head of the OLC, signed the 39-page memo.

Steven Mnuchin, Treasury Secretary during the Trump administration, had consistently rebuked efforts to turn over Trump’s tax returns. According to Mnuchin, the returns were being used as political football in a sharply divided capital.

Naturally, this isn’t the last word we will hear on this subject. Trump’s camp will likely make the next move in this chess game.

[Updated Aug. 3, 2021]

Ronald Fischetti, an attorney for Trump, told The Wall Street Journal on Monday that the legal team will object to the release of Trump’s tax returns.

Section 6103(f)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code states:

Upon written request from the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives, the chairman of the Committee on Finance of the Senate, or the chairman of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Secretary shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such request, except that any return or return information which can be associated with, or otherwise identify, directly or indirectly, a particular taxpayer shall be furnished to such committee only when sitting in closed executive session unless such taxpayer otherwise consents in writing to such disclosure.