Can Congress force Trump to hand over his tax returns? I asked 11 legal experts.

[Quixote1818]

Probably, but it’s complicated.
By Sean [e-mail]@vox.com Apr 9, 2019, 1:50pm EDT

Presidential candidates are not required by law to release tax returns, but every major-party nominee in modern American history has done so. Until Donald Trump.

Trump’s refusal to adhere to this norm has set up a potential legal fight between Congress and the White House.

Last week, Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA), who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, sent a letter to the IRS formally requesting Trump’s federal income tax returns going back to 2013. The request also demands the returns for eight other entities linked to Trump.

In the letter, Neal claims that Congress “has a duty to conduct oversight of departments and officials,” and in this case, that duty involves evaluating the IRS policy to audit all presidents’ tax returns. The letter cites an obscure 1924 law that gives the House Ways and Means Committee the power to request tax returns from the Treasury Department for review in closed session.

Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, said during an interview on Fox News Sunday that Democrats will “never” see Trump’s tax returns, insisting that the tax issue “was already litigated during the election.”

So where does this leave us? Does Congress have the right to demand Trump’s tax returns? And if the Treasury Department refuses to hand them over, what happens next?

To get some answers, I reached out to 11 legal experts. Their full responses, edited for clarity and length, are below.

More:

https://www.vox.com/2019/4/9/18296806/trump-tax-returns-congress-legal-experts

[TruckFump]

1. Good read. Thanks for the link.

Seems like the legal scholars agree with Neal.

[Shrike47]

2. It appears to me they are pretty much in agreement, the tax returns must be turned over.

That shall in the statute is powerful.

[UniteFightBack]

3. What Mulvaney fails to acknowledge is that this has NOTHING to do with voters and litigation. nt

[CanonRay]

4. No, but they can force the IRS Commissioner to do so.

[smirkymonkey]

5. K&R

[world wide wally]

6. If it was litigated during the election, Trump lost.

There is no electoral college rule in court

[Grasswire2]

9. oversight was litigated in 2018 election

The American people gave oversight to Dems.

Period. End of argument. 2018 nullifies that argument.

[mitch96]

7. So the ways and means committee will get it but we won't see it. Am I right? nt

[in2herbs]

8. It's my understanding that the tax records the cte. receives can't be published but I feel we will

be able to decipher what the tax records contain by the actions taken by the cte. There are other committees seeking the tax records as well and the heads of all of the cmtes. will meet in closed session about how to proceed. We may not "see" the tax returns but we will know what's in them by the actions of the cmtes. Besides, dRumpf will probably say something about what's in them that will allow their publication. I hope it will be the start of impeachment against the pres and contempt of congress against others.

[LiberalFighter]

10. It seems like two of them trying to justify not releasing them.

Andy Grewal
Ilya Somin

Likely cause they are Federalist Society members.