House Democrats will try to 'crowdsource an audit' of Trump's taxes now they have them: expert
On CNN Wednesday, Pulitzer Prize-winning tax expert David Cay Johnston predicted that now House Democrats have obtained tax returns from former President Donald Trump's years in office, they will try to put those returns out to the public and effectively "crowdsource" an audit, allowing people to look for signs of tax evasion or crimes.
The key obstacle, Johnston said, is that Trump's taxes still are not, legally speaking, a matter of public record, even after the lengthy court battle that made the IRS hand them over to congressional investigators.
"The tax returns in question are primarily from the period when Donald Trump was president," said anchor John Berman. "How does that affect the investigation?"
"I'd be much more interested in seeing the tax returns before he became president, because there's testimony in the ongoing New York City trial on tax cheating by the Trump Organization that they cleaned up their behavior once Donald Trump arrived in the White House," said Johnston. "But the issue the committee was concerned about was Donald Trump's repeated claims that he was persecuted by the IRS because he's a Christian — never mind in a book he called Christians fools and schmucks and idiots and is inherently anti-Christian. Are presidential candidates being treated properly by the IRS? That's an issue the Republicans might want to get into, depending on how facts turn out in the future. Not likely, but possible, since they're always trying to beat up the IRS."
"So the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, Richie Neal, declined to say whether they will release these publicly," said Berman. "Will any of these see the light of day?"
"They are concerned about a section of the tax return that makes tax returns a public record," said Johnston. "They used to be public records a hundred years ago, but they aren't now. He's having a meeting with his caucus on the committee, and I think one of the things they're certain to discuss is, is there a way for them to put this into the congressional record so that it's always there and people on the outside can basically crowdsource an audit?"
Watch below:
Leave a Comment
Related Post