We Haven’t Seen Trump’s Taxes Yet, but It’s Clear the IRS Failed America
The IRS is required to conduct audits while the President and Vice President are in office. This requirement was enacted in 1997, probably in response to President Nixon’s concerns about tax issues. But this policy, set out in Section 4.8.4.2.4 of the IRS Manual, was not followed during President Trump’s presidency. During his four-year term, the agency initiated his one and only audit of this filing in 2016. It just started in 2019 after House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal sent a letter to his IRS asking for Trump’s returns and tax information. The audit is not over yet.
As the commission characterized, the IRS’ presidential audit program was “dormant” during Trump’s presidency.
Trump’s Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was the first Treasury secretary to refuse to turn over tax information at Congress’ request, Congress seeks compliance to delay Trump-appointed judge Trevor McFadden’s ruling Given the lawsuit filed, perhaps this was not surprising. on this case until Trump left office.
But for most Americans, one of the reasons IRS officials didn’t follow the policy was clearly intimidated by Trump’s tax complexities. In an internal memo, the agency appeared to be complaining about returns about “about 400 flow-through returns…and some of these are tiered… totaling 500 flow-through returns.” These returns will require a much larger team than the current one. ”
A “flow-through” entity is one in which the income coming into the business is passed on to the owner, commonly used to reduce taxation.
In short, the IRS raised its hand on the prospect of having to dig through all the hundreds of records to reward Trump’s complex business structure. Excuse me, did you think that’s what IRS agents like?
Note that the agency had no qualms following its policy regarding the audit of President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden.
Recent revelations that during the Trump administration, the president regularly sought audits of those he viewed as political enemies — and aggressive audits of former FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Such scrutiny could be conducted by the agency’s Office of the Inspector General or the Department of Justice’s Tax Division, not to mention Congress. There is, but little further work by the House on this issue, given the Republican Party’s attempt to control Congress. House.
Chairman Neal and the current Ways and Means Committee have put up a good fight, lying on repeated claims that their investigation had no legitimate purpose. , said, “It is on behalf of the American people … to determine whether that policy is being followed.”
We the people now have an answer, but it’s not pretty.