Will they or won’t they? House Ways and Means Committee to debate behind closed doors whether to publicly release Donald Trump’s taxes after years-long legal battle
The House Ways and Means Committee is expected to hold a closed-door debate Tuesday afternoon on whether or not to publicly release former President Trump’s taxes.
The committee obtained six years of his taxes after a years-long court battle ended weeks ago.
The highly anticipated meeting comes as Democrats have just days to move on the former president’s returns before the end of their leadership on the committee.
House Ways and Means chairman Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., and ranking member Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, have reviewed the information in the documents, and rank-and-file members have reviewed at least some of the documents.
Neal first requested the documents in April 2019.
The committee is expected to vote at the start of the meeting to go into closed-door session to discuss the information in the returns. If they decide to vote to release the information, the vote will be public.
Democrats obtained the returns from 2015 to 2020 under IRS Code section 6103 and would rely on the code to lawfully release Trump’s tax information, but Republicans argue doing so could threaten the privacy of not only other public officials but even private citizens who find themselves the target of the committee.
‘Ways and Means Democrats are unleashing a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond President Trump, and jeopardizes the privacy of every American,’ Brady said in a statement ahead of the meeting.
‘Going forward, partisans in Congress have nearly unlimited power to target political enemies by obtaining and making public their private tax returns to embarrass and destroy them. This is not limited to public officials, but can target private citizens, business and labor leaders, and Supreme Court justices.’
Trump broke with precedent in 2016 by refusing to release his tax returns. While the New York Times already obtained decades of his tax information in 2020, the committee’s findings could fill in the holes of missing years in the Times report.
House Ways and Means chairman Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., firs requested Trump’s tax returns in April 2019
‘Ways and Means Democrats are unleashing a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond President Trump, and jeopardizes the privacy of every American,’ Brady said in a statement ahead of the meeting
US Tax Controversy Attorney Adam Brewer told DailyMail.com the Democrat-led committee is largely looking to ’embarrass the former president – show he doesn’t make as much money as he says he does.’
‘I would have to assume that if he was going to face legal trouble over this, it would have already happened,’ Brewer continued.
‘There’s just so many investigations into taxes. I would be very hard pressed to think that this investigation, this committee with only a few weeks left to work is the one that he’s going to run into trouble with. I can’t stress enough how difficult it would be to handle his tax returns in a few weeks.’
The wide-ranging Times report already found Trump paid no federal income taxes at all in 10 of 15 years beginning in 2000 as he reported losing far more than he made.
Trump broke with precedent in 2016 by refusing to release his tax returns
Democrats have said Trump’s taxes could provide insight on whether the former president had any business that impacted his decision-making as president.
The tax debate comes one day after the House January 6 subcommittee voted to send a criminal referral to the Justice Department for Trump.
Trump recently announced a 2024 run for the presidency, but after the GOP’s lackluster showing in the midterms, largely credited to Trump’s hand in the races, he is no longer considered a shoo-in for the nomination.
This means releasing his taxes could be less politically damaging for Republicans, and could also set precedent they use to request tax information on the Biden family, experts say.
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