Democratic-led House Ways and Means Committee votes to release Trump's taxes to the public
The Democratic-led House Ways and Means Committee voted Tuesday to make public former President Donald Trump's tax returns, the culmination of a years-long quest from House Democrats to obtain the former president's taxes.
The panel approved a motion on a party-line vote to release the materials to the House, clearing the way for Trump's tax returns to be released publicly within a matter of days. The vote was approved with all Democrats voting in favor and all Republicans voting no.
The committee also released a report Tuesday evening along with supplemental analysis from the Joint Committee on Taxation. The panel will also release all information from Chairman Richard Neal's request to the IRS, which means it will include Trump's tax returns from 2015 to 2020.
Those underlying documents, however, will need to undergo significant redactions first. Neal told reporters Tuesday he expected the returns to be released in “only days.”
The release of Trump's tax returns marks the conclusion of a nearly four-year legal battle House Democrats waged against the former president after they took control of Congress in 2019. Neal focused Tuesday on the presidential audit program – he reiterated that the material the committee obtained showed the required presidential audit of Trump's taxes “did not occur” – but the Democratic pursuit was also tied in part to longheld suspicions about Trump's taxes after he would not release his returns while running for president in 2016 or once in office.
A spokesperson for former President Donald Trump accused House Democrats of playing politics for moving to release his tax returns to the public.
“This unprecedented leak by lameduck Democrats is proof they are playing a political game they are losing,” said Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung.
He added, “If this injustice can happen to President Trump, it can happen to all Americans without cause.”
Neal also wouldn't say if he saw any red flags in Trump's taxes – either on his business or personal filings. “I think we need to leave that to the tax folks,” he said.
“It'll be a summary of the returns but then also the returns themselves. That's what we just voted on,” said Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania.
The committee will also release legislation to enshrine in law the presidential audit program.
Neal told reporters the presidential audit program didn't work in relation to Trump's taxes. The Ways and Means Committee first sought Trump's returns in 2019 as part of an assessment of the IRS program that audits presidents.
“The research that was done as it relates to the mandatory audit program was nonexistent,” he told reporters after the committee hearing. “I emphasize again that the mandatory program, as highlighted in what you will likely get in the next few minutes or so, it was almost nonexistent.”
He reiterated over and over their report shows the presidential audit “did not occur.”
Rep. Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the committee, attacked Democrats for weaponizing Trump's financial information. Brady said that the committee voted to release Trump's returns for six years, along with returns from eight affiliated businesses.
“What became clear is that almost all those audits that the IRS is doing is not yet complete. So any characterizations of the returns themselves, you have to acknowledge, this is incomplete at this time,” Brady said.
The highly anticipated meeting, which began publicly but quickly entered into a closed, private session, was years in the making but comes as Democrats have just days to act on whether to release the former president's tax returns. While there is historic precedent for Ways and Means to release confidential tax information, a decision to put it out to the public would come with intense political fallout as Trump has already declared he is running for president in 2024.
The committee has had access to Trump's taxes for weeks after winning a lengthy legal battle that began in the spring of 2019. Neal requested the first six years of Trump's taxes as well as tax returns for eight of his businesses back in April of 2019.
Brady of Texas, the panel's top Republican, told reporters just before Tuesday's meeting that releasing Trump's tax returns would amount to “a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond the former president and overturns decades of privacy protections for average Americans that have existed since the Watergate reform.”
“We are unified in our concern the Democrats may today move forward with unprecedented action that will jeopardize the right of every American to be protected from political targeting by Congress,” Brady said.
Democrats on the committee would rely on section 6103 of the tax code to lawfully release information about Trump's taxes, but Republicans are prepared to argue that Democrats are abusing the provision, attacking a political enemy and potentially unleashing a system where even individuals could have their personal information exposed if they become targets of the committee.
What comes next
Once the committee's Tuesday meeting was underway, the panel voted immediately to enter into a closed, private session. Members and staff in the room would have been able to freely discuss the information contained in Trump's tax returns and begin their debate about what to do next.
Historical precedent
When Neal requested Trump's tax information in 2019, he wasn't the first chairman to use an arcane section of the tax code known as 6013 to glean confidential tax information. The same statute has been used a number of times by Ways and Means chairmen for investigations and the Joint Committee on Taxation also used the statute to obtain information about former President Richard Nixon's taxes in the 1970s.
According to the House Ways and Means Committee, that information was requested and received without a legal fight. Nixon had voluntarily released some of his returns, but JCT requested additional returns using 6103, according to a House Ways and Means Committee memo released earlier this summer. Republicans have also used the 6103 statute. Back in 2014, Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp led the committee in releasing confidential tax information to further the committee's investigation into whether the IRS had unfairly targeted conservative organizations when deciding on groups to probe.
What the public could learn
While The New York Times obtained decades of Trump's personal tax information back in 2020, Neal's request could shed light on additional years of Trump's finances and paint a picture of how the former president used his business entities and personal wealth in the years before and after becoming president.
Trump broke with tradition in 2016 by refusing to release any of his personal tax returns.
Democrats have long argued that Trump's taxes could provide necessary information about whether the president had any entanglements that could impact his decision making as president. Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee argued in court they needed Trump's tax returns so they could understand better the presidential audit program, which is supposed to routinely audit the returns of every incoming president and vice president when they are elected.
Neal didn't just request Trump's raw tax return, however. Neal also requested administrative files and paperwork, items that could include IRS officials' notes or audits of Trump's returns. The information could paint a picture of what kind of scrutiny the IRS has pursued on Trump in the past and whether any of that scrutiny changed when he became president.
If the committee did vote to make the information public, it could shed light on how wealthy Trump really is, how much he gave to charity and how much he paid in taxes. The New York Times report in 2020 made clear that Trump carried over business losses for years to legally be able to avoid paying taxes for many of those years, but Ways and Means will have access to some additional years of Trump taxes as well.
