Washington, DC – The Committee on Rules and Procedures of the House of Representatives, controlled by the Democrats, insisted today on claiming from the Government several tax returns delayed by the President, Donald Trump, and their businesses.
The chairman of that committee, Richard Neal, today sent two summonses to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) commissioner Charles Rettig to deliver the statements for a six-month period. years, before next Friday, May 17.
“I do not take this step lightly, but I believe that this action gives us the best chance to succeed and obtain the required material,” Neal said in a statement.
This new petition comes after Mnuchin himself refused on Monday to give the Democrats several Trump tax returns, which increased the chances that the political battle over the president’s finances will end up in the Supreme Court.
Neal had demanded that the Treasury give him those income statements before Monday, in order to identify his business ties and rule out conflicts of interest in his actions.
After the refusal of the Executive, Neal has opted to resort to a judicial summons to force the Government to deliver the documents.
Trump is the first president since Gerald Ford (1974-1977) who does not publish his tax return every year, a tradition that his predecessors considered part of his duty of transparency and accountability to the people.
The president broke with that tradition already during the election campaign of 2016, when he refused to publish his last tax declaration on the grounds that it was subject to an audit by the IRS.
Upon regaining control of the House of Representatives, last January, the Democrats took advantage of their new powers to request Trump’s tax returns for six years, arguing that the country’s tax code forces Mnuchin to “deliver” those fiscal documents that Neal asks for.
The argument that his taxes are under audit can serve Trump for the rest of his term, since the president’s statement is automatically audited every year, but, according to legal experts, there is nothing to prevent the president from publishing it or delivering it to Congress. If I wanted to (EFEUSA)
