A liberal think tank on Monday pushed Congress to request President Donald Trump’s tax returns “to understand his murky finances.”
Seth Hanlon, a senior fellow at The Center for American Progress, argued in a report that Congress “would be well within its legitimate investigative and oversight powers” to request the president’s tax returns.
The request is needed “to understand his murky finances; monitor potential conflicts of interest relevant to national security and other critical issues; and oversee the tax code and IRS,” the think tank wrote in its overview.
In 2016, Trump became the first major party nominee in decades to refuse to release his tax returns.
The Hill pointed out a provision in the federal tax code gives House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., the authority to request tax returns from the Treasury Department and review them in a closed session. The Ways and Means Committee could then vote to submit a report to the House, which could make public some or all of the tax returns.
Neal has said he’ll request the returns but hasn’t so far.
CAP's report maintains that Congress both has the authority to request Trump's tax returns as well as the "constitutional responsibility to do so given his secrecy and his domestic and foreign business entanglements, as well as the powers of the office."
It then gives six reasons why Congress should then obtain the president’s tax returns: to figure out if U.S. national security could be compromised by any financial conflicts of interest; to see if Trump has any conflicts of interests concerning his trade policies; to determine if Trump is violating the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution; to determine if Trump is benefiting from his own tax policies; to determine whether the IRS is sufficiently auditing Trump; and, to inform Congress's consideration of the legislation the House passed last month to require presidents to disclose 10 years of tax returns.
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