Tag: House Ways and Means Committee

Dem request for Trump’s tax returns

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Monday formally rejected Democrats’ request for President Trump’s tax returns, setting up a likely court battle.

“I am informing you now that the Department may not lawfully fulfill the Committee’s request,” Mnuchin said in a one-page letter to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.), adding that the request “lacks a legitimate legislative purpose.”

Mnuchin said he made the decision while relying on the advice of the Department of Justice (DOJ). He said DOJ plans to publish its legal opinion as soon as possible.

View the complete May 6 article by Naomi Jagoda on The Hill website here.

Mnuchin schooled on law that says turn over Trump’s taxes or face 5 years in prison: ‘There is no wriggle room’

On Thursday, Pultizer Prize-winning business writer David Cay Johnston wrote an editorial laying out the hard truth for Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin: he has no legal choice but to hand over President Donald Trump’s tax returns to Congress. The law says he must.

“The reason will no doubt surprise those who think Trump can thumb his nose at the law governing Congressional access to anyone’s tax returns, including his,” wrote Johnston. “It will for sure shock Trump, who claims that ‘the law is 100 percent on my side.’”

But not so: “Under Section 6103 of our tax code, Treasury officials ‘shall’ turn over the tax returns ‘upon written request’ of the chair of either Congressional tax committee or the federal employee who runs the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. No request has ever been refused, a host of former Congressional tax aides tell me.”

View the complete April 12 article by Matthew Chapman of Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Trump rejects giving Dems tax returns, citing audit

President Trump said Wednesday that he won’t release his tax returns while he’s under audit, setting the stage for a standoff among the White House, the Treasury Department and House Democrats.

“I would love to give them, but I’m not going to do it while I’m under audit,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House for a trip to Texas.

Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee set a Wednesday deadline for the Treasury Department to turn over six years’ worth of Trump’s personal and business tax returns.

View the complete article by Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.

Treasury expected to miss Dem deadline on Trump tax returns

The Trump administration is expected to miss the Wednesday deadline set by Democrats to hand over President Trump’s tax returns, raising the odds that the battle will turn into a lengthy court fight.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin testified to two congressional committees on Tuesday, telling lawmakers the White House had discussed the tax-return issue with Treasury’s legal department before Democrats asked for the documents. Mnuchin said he personally had not spoken to Trump over the tax returns.

Trump has said he cannot make the records public because of an audit, and his acting chief of staff on Sunday publicly said the administration will never hand them over to Democrats

View the complete April 9 article by Naomi Jagoda and Sylvan Lane on The Hill website here.

Mnuchin reveals White House lawyers consulted Treasury on Trump tax returns, despite law meant to limit political involvement

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Treasury Department lawyers consulted with the White House general counsel’s office on President Trump’s tax returns. (The Washington Post)

Treasury Department lawyers consulted with the White House general counsel’s office about the potential release of President Trump’s tax returns before House Democrats formally requested the records, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday.

Mnuchin had not previously revealed that the White House was playing any official role in the Treasury Department’s decision on releasing Trump’s tax returns.

Democrats are asking for six years of Trump’s returns, using a federal law that says the treasury secretary “shall furnish” the records upon the request of House or Senate chairmen. The process is designed to be walled off from White House interference, in part because of corruption that took place during the Teapot Dome scandal in the 1920s.

View the complete April 9 article by Damian Paletta on The Washington Post website here.

Fight escalates over Trump’s tax returns

Tensions are mounting in the fight over President Trump’s tax returns, as the deadline for when Democrats said the IRS must provide them to Congress approaches.

The escalating fight between Trump and Democrats puts pressure on two key administration officials who will testify on Capitol Hill on Tuesday: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig.

Trump’s surrogates are publicly criticizing Democrats’ request for the returns, with acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney saying on Sunday that Democrats will “never” obtain the documents.

View the complete April 9 article by Naomi Jagoda on The Hill website here.

Mulvaney: Democrats will ‘never’ see Trump’s tax returns

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Sunday that Democrats will “never” see President Trump‘s tax returns.

“Nor should they. That’s an issue that was already litigated during the election. Voters knew the president could have given his tax returns, they knew that he didn’t, and they elected him anyway,” Mulvaney said during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.”

He added that Democrats “know they’re not going to” get the tax returns.

View the complete April 7 article by Michael Burke on The Hill website here.

The increasingly suspicious pattern behind Trump’s nominees

President Trump is not a man in a hurry to fill top-level vacancies in his administration. He hasn’t nominated someone for 1 in every 5 top jobs. He has left “acting” officials in charge of the huge bureaucracies for months at a time without selecting replacements. He has yet to name ambassadors in some of the most important diplomatic outposts in the world.

But he has reportedly taken a keen interest in confirming one official: his pick for . . . IRS chief counsel?

It’s not difficult to surmise a very self-serving reason for that. And other recent Trump appointments only reinforce the possibility that his motives aren’t entirely pure here.

View the complete April 5 article by Aaron Blake on The Washington Post website here.

White House maneuvers to block release of Trump’s tax returns

The White House could attempt to block the release of President Trump’s tax returns to Democrats, senior officials signaled on Thursday, an unprecedented step that might lead to a constitutional challenge and catapult the issue into federal court.

In an indication of how the standoff might escalate, Trump himself suggested that the Justice Department could become involved — even though Democrats directed their request to the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service.

“They’ll speak to my lawyers and they’ll speak to the attorney general,” Trump said during an unrelated event in the Oval Office when asked about the Democrats’ request for six years of his personal and business tax returns.

View the complete April 4 article by Erica Werner, Damian Paletta and Jeff Stein on The Washington Post website here.

Progressive groups push Democrats to full-court press for Trump’s taxes

Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., has indicated that he won’t make a quick play for Trump’s tax returns. Credit: Tom Williams, CQ Roll Call file photo

New House Ways and Means chairman has indicated he will ‘lay out a case’ to obtain POTUS’ tax records

Progressive groups renewed their calls Thursday for the leading Democrat on the House committee with jurisdiction over taxes to “immediately” obtain Donald Trump’s tax returns, which the president refused to release during the 2016 campaign after initially promising to do so.

“As the newly appointed Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, it is your constitutional duty and responsibility to conduct effective oversight of President Donald Trump and his administration,” three leading progressive groups on the issue wrote in a letter to Democratic Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts.

The progressive coalition is composed of the Tax March, which organized rallies in 200 cities in April 2017 to demand that the president release his taxes, and anti-Trump groups Indivisible and Stand Up America.

View the complete January 24 article by Griffin Connolly on The Roll Call website here.