House Committee Votes ‘Yes’ to Release Trump’s Tax Returns
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The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee approved the public release of six years’ worth of former President Donald J. Trump’s tax returns, the New York Times reports.
The vote was approved with all 24 Democrats voting in favor of the motion and all 16 Republicans against it. The Democratic-controlled committee said it will redact personal information from the documents; it is still unclear when these materials will be available to the public.
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While the public release of Trump’s finances will provide the most up-to-date information, much of the data has been reported on. In 2020, the Times obtained tax-return data for then-President Trump that revealed he did not pay income taxes in 11 of the 18 years the paper reviewed. The bombshell report also showed that in 2016, the year he won the presidency, Trump paid only $750 in federal income taxes. He paid the same amount in 2017, his first year in office.
The decision to obtain Trump’s tax returns in August was spurred by Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the committee chairman, writing to the IRS in April 2019 requesting Trump’s federal income tax returns, saying the committee needed them to analyze the Presidential Audit Program. While the Treasury Department rejected this request, the House then sued and renewed the lawsuit last year.
In the opinion, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge David Sentelle dismissed Trump’s claims that the request was politically motivated.
“The Chairman has identified a legitimate legislative purpose that it requires information to accomplish. At this stage, it is not our place to delve deeper than this,” Stentelle wrote. “The mere fact that individual members of Congress may have political motivations as well as legislative ones is of no moment. Indeed, it is likely rare that an individual member of Congress would work for a legislative purpose without considering the political implications.”
After the vote on Tuesday, House Democrats said the obtained documents also showed that the I.R.S. failed to audit Trump during his first two years as president. It was only after Rep. Neal requested Trump’s taxes that the agency began an audit, which has yet to be completed.
This story is being updated.
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