Trump To Object To Release Of Tax Returns
Former President Donald Trump speaks to his supporters during the Save America Rally at the Sarasota Fairgrounds in Sarasota, Florida, U.S. July 3, 2021. REUTERS/Octavio Jones
“There is no evidence of any wrongdoing here and I object to the release of the returns not only on behalf of my client but on behalf of all future holders of the Office of the President of the United States,” said Trump lawyer Ronald Fischetti in a statement.
“This politicization and harassment of Mr. Trump is uncalled for and outrageous,” Fischetti said, adding that he had “never seen anything like this” in his career as a lawyer.
The Justice Department on Friday ordered the Internal Revenue Service to hand over Trump’s tax returns to a House committee, saying the panel has offered “sufficient reasons” for requesting the material.
House Democrats have said they need Trump’s tax returns to see if the IRS is properly auditing presidential tax returns in general and to assess whether new legislation is needed.
The order marked a reversal for the Justice Department. In 2019, when Trump was still in office, the department’s Office of Legal Counsel declared that the request for his taxes by the Democratic-led House Ways and Means Committee was based on a “disingenuous” objective aimed at exposing them to the public.
Unlike other recent presidents, Trump did not publicly disclose his tax returns.
Trump To Fight Release Of Tax Returns To Congress
An attorney for former President Trump told the Wall Street Journal Monday he intends to fight a Department of Justice order to release his tax returns to the Democratic-led House Ways and Means Committee.
Driving the news: The DOJ said in a memo to the Treasury Department last Friday that the committee had a “legitimate legislative purpose” to access the returns. A judge has asked the parties to provide a time frame for written arguments by Wednesday, the WSJ notes.
- Trump has been fighting the release of his tax returns to the panel for over two years.
What they’re saying: “There is no evidence of any wrongdoing here and I object to the release of the returns not only on behalf of my client but on behalf of all future holders of the office of the president of the United States,” said Ronald Fischetti, a lawyer for Trump to the WSJ.
- The DOJ did not immediately respond to Axios’ request for comment.
Opinion: Trumps Tax Returns Shouldnt Be Blamed On The System
Some might see Trumps tax returns as an example of shrewd business, capitalising on legal loopholes. But dont be fooled: some of his methods bordered on criminal and contributed to making the system grossly unfair, writes Nathan Robinson.
When billionaires dont pay their taxes, the rest of us have to cover the gaps. When you look at your own tax bill, understand that it could be lower if super-wealthy people like Trump werent trying to shift the burden on to everyone else. You paid for Trumps $73m tax refund and hes laughing all the way to the bank.
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Interference With Irs Audit
On July 29, 2019, a career IRS official filed a whistleblower complaint with the House Ways and Means Committee, Senate Finance Committee, and Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, stating that at least one Treasury Department official had inappropriately interfered in the audit process for the tax returns of the president and vice president, which takes place annually in accordance with IRS policy. The possibility that political appointees interfered with audits conducted by career civil servants alarmed former IRS officials and legal experts. Due to stringent laws regarding disclosure of tax information, the details of the complaint have not been made public. However, Representative Richard E. Neal, the Democratic chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, said in September 2019 that he was consulting legal counsel on whether the whistleblower’s complaint could be publicly released.
The whistleblower’s report was referred to by Neal and other House Democrats in the federal lawsuit regarding Trump’s refusal to comply with a House Ways and Means Committee subpoena for the returns in a filing, Neal wrote that the whistleblower’s complaint presents credible evidence of potential inappropriate efforts to influence “the mandatory audit program” and raises “serious and urgent concerns”, thereby bolstering the committee’s case for obtaining the tax returns.
Why Did Presidents Begin To Make Voluntary Disclosures Of Tax Returns In 1974
The tradition of voluntary tax return disclosure began with a scandal. In 1973 journalists discovered information suggesting that President Richard Nixon had taken large, hard-to-defend deductions on his individual tax returns. After months of media speculation , someone at the IRS leaked information from the presidents returns confirming that he had paid just $792.81 in federal income taxes for 1970 and $878.03 for 1971 despite having an income of more than $200,000 each year.
To help quell the ensuing uproar which occasioned Nixons oft-quoted insistence that I am not a crook the president decided to make a public release of his tax returns for 1969, 1970, 1971, and 1972. That tax disclosure was the first made by a sitting U.S. president.
Ford, Nixons vice president, didnt release complete tax returns after taking office in the wake of Nixons resignation. Ford released a nine-year summary of his tax data when running for president in 1975 and 1976. But starting with Carter, every president through Obama has made an annual disclosure of the tax return he filed during each year in which he held office.
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Will Trump Release His Tax Returns Billionaire Pledges Up To $5 Million For Veterans If So
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The billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman, has pledged to give up to $5 million to veterans groups if Donald J. Trump agrees to release his tax returns before the Oct. 19 presidential debate.
Mr. Hoffman announced his challenge in a statement published Monday on Medium that said he was offering a matching donation to support a crowdfunding campaign started by Peter Kiernan, a former Marine.
By midday Tuesday, Mr. Kiernans fund-raising on Crowdpac.com had raised more than $74,000 toward its $1 million goal of donating funds to 10 nonprofit organizations that help war veterans. Mr. Hoffman offered to match those donations 5 to 1 up to $5 million.
He said that offer was inspired by Mr. Trumps own pledge in 2012 to donate that amount to a charity if President Obama revealed his college and passport records and applications. At the time, Mr. Trump had been questioning whether Mr. Obama was born in the United States .
Taking Trumps own 2012 offer to President Obama into account, Id like to assist Kiernan in his campaign, Mr. Hoffman wrote.
In a functioning democracy, the public shouldnt be forced to bargain with a major presidential candidate to obtain access to his tax returns, he wrote.
The returns might resolve questions about Mr. Trumps own charitable giving. The Washington Post has reported that the candidate has exaggerated the amount he has donated to veterans groups over the years.
Last Thing: New Zealand Pigeon Returns Home After 24 Years
After more than two decades in the wild, a New Zealand native pigeon or kerer named Pidge has returned to the wildlife park he was born in. Aged 29, Pidge is likely to be the oldest living kerer. Keepers at the park assume he had lived nearby and returned for a bit of TLC in his retirement years.
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Trump Is Still Desperately Doing Everything He Can To Prevent Having To Release His Tax Returns
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Of the many dumb things that Donald Trump has ever saidand there have been lots and lots of thembragging about being smart for not paying his taxes is right up there with crowing about how he likes grab women by the p*ssy in most despicable quotes. Yet here were are, more than five years and one full presidential term later, and the former president is still desperate to prevent his tax returns from ever seeing the light of day.
As NBC News reports, Trumps lawyers were pleading with a federal judge on Tuesday to prevent their clients tax returns from being handed over to the House Ways and Means Committee via either the Treasury Department and/or the IRS. While committee chairman Richard Neal has requested the returns as part of an ongoing examination into how the President of the United States taxes are audited by the IRS, lawyers for Trump are calling bullsh*t and saying that the real goal is to find something embarrassing about their client. Which seems like an argument that only the lawyer for someone with something really embarrassing hiding in their tax returns might make.
According to NBC News, lawyers for Trump issued a statement claiming:
Whether that argument holds any water is yet to be determined, but a hearing has been scheduled for November 16th in order to attempt to sort it out.
May 11 201: Trump Tells The Ap That He Will Only Release His Tax Returns Once The Audit Is Complete And That He Will Not Push His Lawyers On The Issue
Theres nothing to learn from them, Trump said. He also said he doesnt believe voters are interested.
Now, I hope gets finished soon. And if it gets finished soon, I put it out immediately because theres nothing there. But until you get finished, you wont, he said.
He also weighed in on this interview , saying, In interview I told @AP that my taxes are under routine audit and I would release my tax returns when audit is complete, not after election!
One of the reporters behind the story, Julie Pace, said later that day on CNNs This Hour: We said, Will you push your lawyers on this, will you tell them that voters deserve to know this information regardless of the audit? He said, No. He said, One, the voters dont actually care about this, and two, there is no new l information that would come out of the tax returns.’
In a statement to statement to CNN, Trumps spokeswoman said, Mr. Trump has always said that when the routine audit is complete he would release his tax returns.
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New York State Trust Act
In May 2019, the New York State Senate passed the TRUST Act which would amend state law to permit the commissioner of the state Department of Taxation and Finance to release any state tax return requested by the leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee or the Joint Committee on Taxation for any “specific and legitimate legislative purpose.” The New York State Assembly approved the bill on May 22, sending it to the governor. On July 8 GovernorAndrew M. Cuomo signed the bill.
Trump sued the State and the House Ways and Means Committee fifteen days later to block release of the tax returns. In November 2019, Trump’s suit was dismissed on personal jurisdiction grounds.
The Many Times Donald Trump Promised He Was Going To Release His Tax Returns
As you rush to get your returns together for 2017’s tax season, don’t forget: The President of the United States is in no rush to release his.
Donald Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns is one of the longest-running scandals of his political career sparking Tax March protests in about 150 cities over the weekend and triggering Trump to fire off another bunch of baffled tweets about the uproar.
Trump, just like all of his citizens, will be filing his taxes this month, and yet there is still no indication the public will ever see them. He is the first major presidential candidate in more than 40 years to withhold them and the first to make it to the White House without that disclosure.
But this didn’t used to be so taxing. Trump spent six years saying he’d have no problem releasing his returns, and even scolded a fellow Republican candidate for waiting too long to do so.
So let’s celebrate this year’s tax season with a look back at broken promises:
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First Thing: Trumps Tax Returns Finally Released Just In Time For Election
Explosive report exposes presidents extensive financial losses and tax avoidance measures. Plus, Trump says overturning Roe v Wade possible with Barrett on supreme court
Good morning.
After a years-long battle to obtain Trumps tax returns, the New York Times has revealed that the president paid just $750 in federal income taxes in the year he took office. According to the newspaper, the self-proclaimed billionaire paid no federal income taxes in 10 of the last 15 years, largely due to significant financial losses and various methods of tax avoidance.
The bombshell report is a severe blow to a president who has built much of his appeal of his alleged success as a businessman. While the president scrambles to dismiss the report as fake news, David Smith asks: will this be enough to sink Trump?
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From failing businesses to a decades-long audit, here are the six biggest takeaways from the report.
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The presidents former campaign manager has been hospitalised at risk of self-harm. Brad Parscale was replaced in June after a campaign rally that was supposed to attract hundreds of thousands of people was sparsely attended, causing embarrassment for Trump.
Trump May Also Have Held Back The Returns To Avoid Legal And Financial Jeopardy
The other probable reason Trump was reluctant to release the returns is that theres clearly some legally questionable stuff in there.
For instance, the records obtained by Buettner, Craig, and McIntire show that Trump wrote off $26 million in supposed consulting fees as a business expense between 2011 and 2018. But the reporters took the added step of uncovering where some of that money was going and they figured out that some of those write-offs matched payments to Trumps daughter Ivanka, as revealed on her own financial disclosure forms.
Ivanka was an executive vice president of the Trump Organization, not some outside consultant. And sources told the Times that there were no outside consultants involved in certain projects for which Trumps businesses wrote off consulting fees.
The Times story also mentions other questionable practices Trump dubbed a Westchester, New York, mansion an investment property so he could write off property taxes on it, but his son Eric Trump called it our compound. The Trump Organization also wrote off Donald Trump Jr.s legal fees for the lawyer who represented him in the Russia investigation.
This is probably just scratching the surface the Times reporters say they have more stories coming. But the larger point is that Trump has a history of questionable tax practices, is facing an audit where he has a lot on the line, and having reporters closely scrutinize his tax returns is only a problem for him.
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