Democrats say IRS must hand over Donald Trump’s tax returns within two weeks
- The House Ways and Means Committee has warned the Internal Revenue Service that it must give documents by April 23
- Constitutionally, committee chairman Richard Neal has the power to demand the tax returns for any US individual
US President Donald Trump’s tax returns must be handed to House Democrats by April 23, a leading committee chair said on Saturday.
On Saturday the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Richard Neal of Massachusetts, wrote to Internal Revenue Service commissioner Charles Rettig to say a failure to comply with the new deadline would be “interpreted as a denial of my request”.
Democrats initially set an April 10 deadline for the returns, but on Saturday Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that Neal was “just picking arbitrary dates” in setting deadlines and said it was more important to get the decision “right” to ensure the IRS would not be “weaponised” in a political dispute “like it was under the Nixon administration”.
“I do intend to follow the law,” Mnuchin said on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings in Washington, “but I think these raise very, very complicated legal issues. I don’t think these are simple issues. There are constitutional issues.”
Constitutionally, Neal has the power to demand the IRS release tax returns for any US individual. He has asked for six years of the president’s personal and business returns. In his letter, he wrote that his power to make the demand “is unambiguous and raises no complicated legal issues”.
Trump was at his golf course in Virginia on Saturday but the White House has already said it will refuse to release such information for a president who as a candidate broke with convention – but not law – by refusing to make his tax returns public.