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WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 (AP) — A report released Tuesday by the Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee found that a required audit of Donald Trump by the Internal Revenue Service has been delayed, as committee members voted along party lines, also releasing the former. The president’s tax filings reject the political norm of self-publishing information.
The full details of what will be revealed are uncertain, but lawmakers said they expected to release six years of tax returns from Trump and eight of his affiliates. Some sensitive personal information will be redacted.
While the 29-page report summarizing the committee’s work was released Tuesday evening, the tax returns themselves may not be released for several more days.
The report suggests the Trump administration may be ignoring a 1977 IRS request for an audit of the president’s tax returns.
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The IRS did not start auditing his 2015 tax returns until April 3, 2019, a date more than two years into Trump’s presidency.
The date also coincides with committee chairman Richard Neal, D-Massachusetts, “to file an initial request with the IRS for the former president’s filing information and related tax returns.”
The IRS did not begin auditing Trump’s 2016 tax returns until September 2019. The audit of his 2017, 2018, and 2019 filings was lagging, and his 2020 filing was never even started.
A separate report released by the joint tax committee detailed Trump’s reported income and taxes owed, showing that he pays the federal government a relatively modest share of his income.
The launch was the culmination of a years-long battle between Trump and Democrats that has taken hold from the campaign trail to the halls of Congress and the Supreme Court.
Democrats on the tax-writing committee argued that transparency and the rule of law were threatened by voting to release a report that legally depends on how the IRS oversees the president of the United States.
Republicans have countered that the release would set a dangerous precedent in losing privacy protections.
“This is about the presidency, not the president,” committee chairman Richard Neal, a Democrat from Massachusetts, told reporters.
Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican member on the panel, said, “It’s a shame that this has been done.”
“With our opposition, Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee have unleashed a dangerous new political weapon that overturns decades of privacy protections,” he told reporters.
“The days of political targets and congressional enemy lists are back, and every American, every American taxpayer who might be on the wrong side of the congressional majority is now at risk.”
The report raised multiple red flags about Trump’s tax filings, including his carryforward losses, deductions related to conservation and charitable contributions, and loans to his children that could be taxable gifts.
A committee led by Neal is proposing legislation to strengthen the IRS practice of requiring the initial report to be filed within 90 days of filing the presidential tax return.
The bill is likely to be considered in the closing days of Congress as Republicans vow to cut funding for more IRS agents, the first bill they will consider to take over the House majority in the new year .
Trump has long had a complicated relationship with his personal income taxes.
As a 2016 presidential candidate, he broke with decades of precedent by refusing to release his tax returns to the public.
During that year’s presidential debate, he boasted that he was “smart” because he paid no federal taxes, and later claimed that he would not personally benefit from the tax cuts he signed in 2017 that would benefit the very rich, demanding that the U.S. Man simply accepts that he keeps his word.
Tax records would have been a useful indicator of his business success. The image of a shrewd businessman is key to the political brand he honed during his time as a tabloid magnet and star of the “Apprentice” TV show. They can also disclose any financial obligations — including foreign debt — that could affect the way he governs.
But Americans were largely in the dark about Trump’s relationship with the IRS until October 2018 and September 2020, when The New York Times published two separate series based on leaked tax records.
The 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning article showed how Trump obtained the equivalent of at least $413 million in modern times from real estate held by his father, much of it from what the New York Times called “tax evasion” in the 1990s .
Trump sued The New York Times and its niece Mary Trump in 2021 for providing records to the paper.
In November, Mary Trump asked an appeals court to overturn a judge’s decision to dismiss her claim that her uncle and his two siblings defrauded her of millions of dollars in a 2001 family settlement.
The 2020 article showed that Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2017 and 2018. Trump paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the past 15 years because he typically lost more money than he made.
The articles exposed stark inequities in the U.S. tax code, as Trump, a well-known billionaire, pays next to nothing in federal income tax. The average tax filer paid about $12,200 in 2017, roughly 16 times what the former president paid, according to IRS data.
Details about the income and debt levels of Trump’s overseas businesses are also included in the tax filings, which the former president derided as “fake news.”
At the time of the 2020 article, Neal said he saw ethical issues with Trump overseeing a federal agency, and he had also struggled with legal filings.
“Now, Donald Trump is the boss of an agency he considers his opponent,” Neal said in 2020. “The IRS’s presidential audit program must remain undisturbed.”
The Manhattan district attorney’s office also obtained copies of Trump’s tax records in February 2021 after a protracted legal battle that included two trips to the Supreme Court.
The office, then headed by District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., subpoenaed Trump’s accounting firm in 2019, demanding eight years of Trump’s tax returns and related documents.
The U.S. attorney’s office issued the subpoena after Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, told Congress that Trump misled tax officials, insurance companies and business associates about the value of his assets. The allegations are the subject of a fraud lawsuit filed in September against Trump and his companies by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Donald Bender, Trump’s longtime accountant, testified at the Trump Organization’s recent criminal trial that Trump had reported losses on his tax returns every year for a decade, including nearly $700 million in 2009 and a loss in 2010. $200 million.
Bender, a partner at Mazars USA LLP who spent years preparing Trump’s personal tax returns, said Trump’s reported losses from 2009 to 2018 included many of the businesses he owned through the Trump Organization. Some of the companies reported net operating losses.
The Trump Organization was convicted earlier this month of tax fraud for helping some executives evade taxes on company-paid perks, such as apartments and luxury cars.
Current Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in an interview with The Associated Press last week that his office’s investigation of Trump and his businesses continues.
“We’re going to follow the facts and keep doing our job,” Bragg said.
Trump refused to release his tax returns during the 2016 presidential campaign and during his four years in the White House while claiming he was being audited by the IRS, arguing that even though he has been working to keep his tax returns There is nothing personal to collect.
“You can’t learn much from tax returns, but if they’re not yours, it’s illegal to publish them!” he complained on his social media networks last weekend. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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