Congress Says It Needs Trump’s Tax Returns to Ensure They’re Being Audited Properly. Really?

Ron Sachs/CNP via ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Richard Neal, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, has asked the IRS to turn over six years of President Trump’s tax returns. What took him so long?

Mr. Neal said throughout that he was chiefly concerned with crafting a request, alongside the House general counsel and the Ways and Means Committee staff, that could withstand legal challenge. “I am certain we are within our legitimate legislative, legal and oversight rights,” he said on Wednesday.

Hmmm. Here’s the part of the letter that justifies the request:

So weeks of review with his legal staff has produced this? A letter saying they need Trump’s tax returns in order to conduct oversight on whether the IRS is properly auditing them? And for this they need not just his tax returns since 2017, but also for the four years before he was president?

It may turn out that the statutory authority of Congress to request tax returns is so absolute that none of this matters. But just in case it’s not, this sure seems like a mighty flimsy excuse. It’s true that no one on the Ways and Means Committee has ever publicly stated a different reason (i.e., “we’re gonna get the son of a bitch” or something similar), a habit that has produced several losses for Trump in federal courts. Still, couldn’t they have come up with something better? This strikes me as pretty thin.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate