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Nobody wants to say for sure, but former officials have claimed that they were perhaps locked somewhere in the Internal Revenue Service building, but even that fact is kept secret. Presidents 'and Vice-Presidents' tax returns were kept in the Commissioner's office, but it is not clear where they are 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.
The finances have increased, the IRS decided to take further steps to ensure that its documents would not be disclosed, a federal offense.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen put in place measures that would require Trump's own lawyers to obtain permission to obtain access to financial documents confidential.
"We had to make sure everything we could do was done," said John Koskinen, nominated by Obama and denounced by Republicans for allegations that the IRS would have targeted Tea Party groups. The returns, he told CNN this week, were "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 myself – called it safe," Koskinen said. "It's only a locked cabinet in a closed room, but for safety, we might as well buy a safe."
There has never been a report on the recommendation published to the public, and even now, Koskinen, who left 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 have never seen the room nor the locked cabinets or cabinet sets of origin, and I'm not sure that they already have a safe," Koskinen said. .
Matthew Leas, a spokesman for the IRS, did not wish to comment on Trump's return. Stored, informing CNN in an e-mail, "Federal laws on confidentiality and disclosure prohibit the IRS from commenting on any person or matter". A spokesperson for the Inspector General's office could not be contacted for comment.
The IRS has a long tradition of safely keeping income tax returns of presidential and vice-presidents. The federal tax collector is required to keep them because they have been designated by the National Archives as historical and permanent records of the agency, 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 because of the growing interest in the press and the American public. key to the IRS, but Koskinen said it would probably have been "several years". There is generally a three-year limitation period for the retention period of the tax return by an agency, unless there is an indication of fraud or criminal activity, in which case the agency would retain these records for years.
In the early 1970s, most presidents chose to disclose to the public their tax returns for the years in which they served and only during the performance of their duties. they are not required to do so by 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 wanted to be transparent," said Joe Thorndike, director of the Tax History Project 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 prepare to petition the IRS for Trump's tax returns under an obscure provision that heads the House and Senate tax drafting committees the power to request taxpayer information from the Treasury Department. It states that "the secretary shall provide this committee with the return information specified in this application."
The decision to process a request for Trump's return will be made by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, one of the president's closest confidants. and first contributors. A Ministry of Finance spokesman said Mr. Mnuchin would review any application for the president's tax return with his general counsel to determine if it was required by law. Starting with a subcommittee hearing Thursday on a provision of the first major Democrats Bill, HR 1, which would require presidential candidates to disclose three years of their tax returns.
returns, and Democrats on Capitol Hill predict that the Treasury will take its time to consider any request.
In January, Neal told CNN that he was "trumpeting" 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 analysis," 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 scheduled to testify at the hearing on Thursday.
"If you are a Republican, you may want to support President Trump in his decision not to disclose his return, in four years time there is a different president in the White House, you may want to -be really those returns there, "said Thorndike. "People have to be careful about this, 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."
