[ad_1]
Nobody wants to say for sure. Former officials say they could be locked up somewhere in the Internal Revenue Service building, but even that fact is concealed in secrecy. Presidents 'and Vice-Presidents' tax returns were kept in the Commissioner's office, but it is not clear that they are being kept today.
The secret has always been a little redundant. Since Watergate, presidential candidates and commanders in chief have made it a habit to make them public.
As questions about Trump's finances grew, the IRS decided to take further steps to ensure that his documents were not released, which would be a federal offense.
The then Commissioner, John Koskinen, put in place measures that would require Trump's own lawyers to obtain permission to access confidential financial documents.
"We had to make sure everything we could do was done," said John Koskinen, nominated by President Obama and denounced by Republicans for allegations that the IRS would have targeted Tea Party groups. The returns, he told CNN this week, have been "watched more closely, as if the president had already been elected."
Koskinen asked the inspector general of the agency to review the process of protecting presidential statements to ensure that all possible safeguarding measures would be taken. The IG had only one recommendation: buy a safe.
"Everyone – including me – has called it safe," Koskinen said. "It's just a closed cupboard in a closed room, but to be safe, we might as well buy a safe."
The public has never reported on this recommendation and, even now, Koskinen, who left in November 2017, does not know if the agency has already bought the safe. It is illegal even for the IRS Commissioner to see any individual return, and he has taken precautions. "I've never seen the original locked cabinet or cabinet nor the original cabinets, and I'm not sure that they already have a safe," he said. Koskinen.
Matthew Leas, an IRS spokesman, declined to comment on the location of Trump's storied statements, stating in an email to CNN: "Federal laws on confidentiality and disclosure prohibit the IRS to comment on any individual or case ". A spokesperson for the Inspector General's office could be reached for comment.
The IRS has long held presidential and vice presidential income statements safely. Federal tax collectors are required to retain them because they have been designated as historical and permanent records of the agency by the National Archives even after the departure of the president. But what is unusual in Koskinen's claim is that it was invoked even before Trump's election, given the increased interest shown by the press and the American public.
It's hard to know exactly when Trump's returns were locked up at the IRS, but Koskinen said it would probably have been "several years". Generally, there is a three-year limitation period for the length of time an agency is filing a tax return, unless there is an indication of fraud or criminal activity, in which case the agency would retain these documents for years.
Since the early 1970s, most presidents have chosen to disclose to the public their tax returns for the years in which they served and only for the duration of their term, which they are not aware of. obliged to do under the law. The practice began with Jimmy Carter, who ran and took office following the tax scandal of President Richard Nixon and Watergate.
"Over time, this tradition became not only everyone who wanted to be anti-Nixon, but he did not want to be different from those who want to be transparent," said Joe Thorndike, director of the project's history of taxation at Tax Analysts. "Tradition has developed its own normative power over time, until you meet someone who does not care, Donald Trump."
Democrats in the House are preparing to petition the IRS for Trump's tax returns under an obscure provision that gives leaders of the House and Senate Tax Drafting Committees the authority to request taxpayer information from the Department of the Treasury. It states that "the secretary shall provide this committee with any return or return information specified in this application".
The decision as to how to process a Trump return application will be made by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, one of the president's closest confidants and the first to have supported it. A spokesman for the Ministry of Finance said Mnuchin would review any application for a tax return from the president with his general counsel to determine if it was required by law.
Trump's lawyers have already threatened a legal fight against the release of the returns and Capitol Hill's Democrats are predicting that the Treasury will take its time to consider any request.
In January, Neal told CNN that he was "judiciously" pursuing Trump's tax returns. "I think the idea here is to avoid the emotions of the moment and to make sure that the product is resistant to critical badysis," he said. "And that will be the case."
Steven Rosenthal, Principal Investigator at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center; George Yin, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Virginia and former Chief of Staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation; and Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, and Thorndike are due to testify at Thursday's hearing.
"If you are a Republican, you may want to support President Trump in his decision not to publish his returns.In four years, if there is a different President at the White House, you may want to really those returns, "said Thorndike. "People have to be careful about this, either you think this information is important or you do not, it has to go beyond politics, because everyone will end up on the wrong side."
[ad_2]
Source link
