President Trump committed Wednesday to fighting House Democrats’ efforts to obtain his tax returns, saying that he has “no obligation” to release the information.
“I have no obligation to do that while under audit and no lawyer would tell you to release your tax returns while you’re under audit,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
By IRS rules put in place after President Richard Nixon was found to have underpaid on his taxes, every president and vice president is placed under audit during their tenure in office.
“I would love to give them but I’m not going to do it while I’m under audit,” Trump said. He gave the same reasoning for not releasing his tax returns during the presidential campaign, although no law prevents him from releasing his tax information while under audit.
Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, has invoked a law that grants him power to review tax returns as part of legislative oversight. The deadline for Neal’s request, which was sent to the IRS last week, is Wednesday.
On Friday, personal attorneys for Trump wrote the IRS in an attempt to head off the request, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who oversees the IRS, declined to tell Congress in testimony yesterday if he planned to cooperate with the request.
If the Trump administration refuses, as expected, it could set off a lengthy court battle.
IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig began testifying before the Senate Finance Committee in a previously planned hearing shortly after Trump made his remarks.
The panel’s top Democrat, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, asked Rettig whether the White House had tried to influence him over the request for the president’s tax returns.
“No,” said Rettig. “We received the letter, we’re working on the letter with counsel, and we anticipate responding.”
But when Wyden also asked Rettig questions aimed at probing whether Mnuchin or the Treasury Department might be influencing Rettig’s response to the congressional request, the IRS commissioner reiterated that Treasury oversees his agency.
“My reading … is that it is your job and your job alone to respond to Chairman Neal’s request,” said Wyden. “Do you agree with that?”
“Remember that we’re a bureau of the Treasury, we are supervised by the Treasury,” said Rettig. “I’m aware of the delegation order, as is Treasury, but you must be aware that we are a bureau of the Treasury and that Treasury supervises us.”
Mnuchin has told Congress that lawyers in his department have discussed the possibility of receiving a request for Trump’s returns with White House counsel.
Pressed by Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., whether he planned to make the decision of cooperation with the congressional request himself, Rettig responded only that the Treasury supervises his bureau.
Rettig did not elaborate as to whether he planned to provide Trump’s returns as requested. By law, tax information is typically treated as strictly confidential.
Rettig pledged to notify Congress if the White House tried to direct the IRS’ response to the request, and said that any IRS employee who the White House tries to give an order would by law have to report that to the tax collection agency’s inspector general.
