Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., introduced a bill in the Senate this week that would require presidential candidates to release at least three years of tax returns within 15 days of officially becoming their party’s nominee. It would charge the Treasury with making the forms public if a candidate refused to do so.
Wyden’s obvious target is Donald Trump, who will accept the Republican presidential nomination in July and says he will not release his returns before Election Day.
Wyden’s threat probably ensures that Trump won’t do what he should and produce his tax information for public scrutiny. The legislation is otherwise an empty threat, for it has no chance of passing or even getting a vote. It’s a piece of partisan grandstanding.
Still, Trump should release his returns, and he will be hounded and cajoled until he does. The tycoon insists there is nothing to learn from his returns and that the public isn’t interested in them anyway. But he is wrong on both counts.
Every major party nominee since 1976 has released his tax returns during the campaign, and much is learned from them, such as information not only about the candidate’s income, but also about conflicts of interest, charitable giving and use of tax loopholes.
In 2012, President Obama made political hay out of the revelation that Mitt Romney paid a 14 percent effective tax rate in 2010 because much of his income had come from dividends and capital gains. In 2008, Obama’s donations to the church of his controversial former pastor Jeremiah Wright, and Joe Biden’s stingy rate of charitable giving, became fodder for political opponents.
In Trump’s case, making the returns public would settle the question of whether his net worth is more than $10 billion, as he claims, or a significantly lower sum, as outside analysts estimate. His tax form isn’t the 1040EZ, of course, but it should be easy for him to release his returns anyway, assuming they don’t contain anything explosive.
Trump’s unwillingness to release his forms raises the question of what he might be hiding. This may be a problem for a candidate whose appeal is based on “telling like it is.”
Trump acknowledges, boasts, that he uses the tax code to his and his company’s advantage, and notes, reasonably enough, that that’s what good businessmen should do. (Frankly, so should everyone. There is no merit in paying more tax than the law requires except if you’re one of those, like left-wing Hollywood stars, who keep saying taxes should be higher, but keep their own as low as possible).
Trump is wrong to claim that the public doesn’t care about his taxes. About two-thirds of registered voters want presidential candidates to release their returns, polls say.
Candidates now routinely pledge accountability and transparency if they are elected. But why wait? Trump can demonstrate that commitment immediately but giving the public a look at his finances.
