The federal ethics disclosures Mr. Trump has made about his holdings so far have been limited. For example, there is no requirement that he report the identities of investors who have put money into his businesses. Mr. Trump acquired many properties, in particular golf courses, with cash, but where did that cash come from? Mr. Trump’s son Eric once told a journalist that the Trump Organization’s golf properties were paid for with Russian money. Eric Trump has denied making that statement. While Mr. Trump’s federal filings have reported some outstanding loans, investments and income from each business, they do not include debts where he has a partial interest or older loans that have been paid off. In theory, the existence of those older loans — and the lenders behind them — could be disclosed on his historical tax returns because certain types of interest on debts can be tax-deductible. In reality, much of that information is unlikely to be contained in the limited number of returns requested by Congress. The panel is seeking the returns for only a small number of Mr. Trump’s companies. But he controls hundreds of separate L.L.C.s that contain individual businesses, as varied as a particular building or the rights to license his name overseas. Each one of those businesses may file its own tax return, separate from the ones requested by the committee. How exactly does Mr. Trump make his money? Mr. Trump owns and operates businesses in the United States and overseas. He earns revenue from golf club memberships, from leasing space in his buildings and from licensing deals to put the “Trump” name on other developers’ properties. Mr. Trump’s government disclosure reports show ranges of how much revenue his various subsidiaries collect, as provided by Mr. Trump, but they do not indicate the companies’ overall profitability. For example, his most recent government ethics report states that his Irish golf business reported revenue of $14 million in 2017. However, Irish regulators require that the golf subsidiary make its filings public. Those disclosures show the business actually lost about $2 million that year. Mr. Trump’s returns could provide further detail about the profitability of his other businesses. More broadly, his tax returns can be compared with the ethics disclosures to check the accuracy of the filings.<doc-sep>President Trump wasted no time responding to a House request for this tax returns. His abrupt answer: No way. The House Ways and Means Committee formally requested six years of Trump’s tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service on April 3. Congress has the right to do that. A 1924 anti-corruption law says the committee can obtain anybody’s tax return from the IRS. “I won’t do it,” Trump told reporters on April 10, the day Rep. Richard Neal, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, set as the deadline for delivery of the returns. Trump used his old excuse about being under audit, which doesn’t, in fact, prevent him from turning over his returns. “I have no problem with it,” Trump fibbed, “but while I’m under audit, I won’t give them.” This is a tiresome fight that is going to get more tiresome. Every major presidential candidate since 1972 has released at least one year of tax returns. Trump refused as a candidate, and it’s no surprise he continues to refuse. But there are legitimate reasons for seeing Trump’s returns, and he seems to be hiding something. For these reasons, this week’s Trump-o-meter reads WEAK, the third-lowest rating. Source: Yahoo Finance Trump supporters argue that the president’s finances are his own business, and there’s no public interest served in releasing them for a public feeding frenzy. But Trump properties in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere may be profiting from his role as president, a possible violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause. That’s public interest enough. Trump also signed a sweeping tax-cut law that went into effect last year, with the top 20% of earners likely to capture about 65% of the benefit. The law also cut business taxes across the board. Voters have a right to know if President Trump is benefiting personally from a law he championed and signed. One final argument against Trump releasing his tax returns is there’s no law requiring him to do so. That was true before. But Congress has now invoked a law requiring the IRS to turn over the returns. The law doesn’t include exceptions for the president, or anyone. You can argue it’s a bad law, but you can’t argue there’s no legal requirement. Story continues Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who oversees the IRS, says he’ll “comply with the law,” and consult with the Justice Department about what to do. But given his boss’s determination to keep the returns private, there’s no tenable way Mnuchin or the IRS will turn them over. This means the House must sue to get the returns, with judges deciding and the whole spectacle possibly ending at the Supreme Court. By the time that happens, the 2020 elections could be over. Political intentions There’s no doubt Democrats want Trump’s tax returns for political reasons. They want to hunt for information that could embarrass Trump and diminish his reelection odds. As icky as that might be, it’s also beside the point. First, Trump is impervious to embarrassment. The 45% or so of Americans who approve of his presidency already know he’s a liar, a cheater and a self-aggrandizer. They don’t particularly care and it’s hard to imagine new information would change many minds. Second, the information in Trump’s returns is in the public interest, even if Democrats think it might also serve their political machinations. It’d be better for the country to know what’s in his returns than not to know. Trump also stuck by his man Herman Cain this week, even though Cain’s nomination to be a Federal Reserve governor was doomed from the start. Cain dropped out of the 2012 presidential race amid several credible claims of sexual harassment. Cain would have to be approved by the Senate, which means Trump, by nominating him, is forcing Senate Republicans to take a stand on sexual harassment: for or against? Some Republican senators could probably afford to vote for Cain, but not nearly enough to confirm him. Cain’s nomination will be officially dead any second now. Trump’s other Fed nominee, pundit Stephen Moore, has maybe a 50-50 chance. He’s an academic lightweight real economists consider unqualified, but Senate Republicans might confirm him as a consolation prize to Trump. Meanwhile, Trump has axed many of his domestic-security agency heads and embraced the idea of “acting,” or temporary, department heads because he can get rid of them more easily when they fail to please him. Mnuchin probably has that in mind as he ponders whether to comply with the law, or front for his boss. Confidential tip line: rickjnewman@yahoo.com. Encrypted communication available. Click here to get Rick’s stories by email. Read more: Winter is coming for big business Why Trump wants to manipulate the Federal Reserve The Mueller probe was money well spent College admission scandal reveals the worst parents ever Trump’s hidden tax hikes Why voters will reject the "Green New Deal" Voters are souring on “Medicare for all” 3 problems with Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax Rick Newman is the author of four books, including “Rebounders: How Winners Pivot from Setback to Success.” Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman<doc-sep>All parties used to know that the IRS’s audit power needs to be secure from political oversight or intervention. Indeed, the second article of impeachment against President Richard M. Nixon accused him of trying to obtain “confidential information contained in income tax returns” and cause “income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.” If the House Ways and Means Committee can initiate its own oversight into specific audits or the lack thereof of individuals, it is arguably engaging in the same behavior that led House Democrats to attempt to impeach the president in 1974. One can imagine a legitimate and limited request for tax information in response to a specific charge that Trump violated the emoluments clause in a specific instance. But that is not what this request is about.<doc-sep>Editor’s Note: Edward J. McCaffery is Robert C. Packard trustee chair in law and a professor of law, economics and political science at the University of Southern California. He is the author of “Fair Not Flat: How to Make the Tax System Better and Simpler” and founder of the People’s Tax Page. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN. (CNN) — Two tax stories, progressing on non-parallel tracks and in seemingly alternate universes, are in the news, both moving full-steam ahead. One story is about all of us, or rather almost all of us: Ordinary workers getting ready this Monday, April 15, for the first tax day after the Trump-inspired Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017. We are about to learn first-hand that Trump’s promise to fix our broken tax code was not quite kept. Edward J. McCaffery The other story – the one sucking up all of the oxygen in the media, as per usual – features our reality-TV-host, Taxpayer-in-Chief, President Donald J. Trump, who is embroiled in a battle with House Dems over the release of his tax returns. His minions are vowing that the American people will never see them, even though the law giving Congress the power to obtain them seems as crystal clear as laws can seem these days. These concurrent storylines underscore a basic and important fact of life in America today. There are two tax systems in our country: One for the many of us who work regular jobs for a living, and a second for those who have wealth and can live off of it, without bothering much about ordinary work. Trump lives in the second world. True, his tax returns might be more complex than most, as Trump’s staged photographs in tax times past aim to show us. But Trump reportedly gets others to do the hard work of filling out the forms – evidence suggests he personally does not pay much attention to tax details. Perhaps he never developed the habit since he admitted that for years he avoided paying federal income taxes. Such wealth-without-taxation runs in the family. Son-in-law Jared Kushner is a proud member of the no-tax club, documents suggest. And now, faced with a clear statute mandating that the IRS turn over requested tax returns to Congress so that perhaps we can all see what’s really been going on, our President is fighting the black letter law tooth and nail. The battle is likely to wind its way to the courts, where Trump can use public funds to defend his not-quite-legitimate right to privacy. As for the rest of us this tax season? We have, quite simply, nowhere to hide. As we sit down to fill out our taxes on or before Monday (or ask for an automatic six-month extension at least), the IRS already knows everything it needs to know about us. Taxes are withheld from our paychecks before we ever even get cash to pay for food or shelter or other necessities. Our employers send a copy of the same W-2 we get, showing all of our salary and taxes withheld, to the government, so as to get their tax breaks for wages paid. This system of wage-withholding and third-party reporting was introduced during World War II in order to get the working classes to finance the war effort. Workers are still paying, decades later, and not just in income taxes but in payroll taxes as well – all with little choice. Big brother watches us at every step of our financial way. Trump’s Tax Cut and Jobs Act will make filling out forms simpler for many of us. The standard deduction went up, and itemized deductions (such as the previously unlimited one for state and local income and property taxes) went down. So now almost 90% of income taxpayers will take the standard deduction, compared to about 70% under the old law. These many ordinary households will simply add up the wages from their W-2’s, subtract their standard deduction, and check off a few boxes – nearly a postcard return for the masses. Get our free weekly newsletter Sign up for CNN Opinion's new newsletter. Join us on Twitter and Facebook But simple does not mean painless. (It’s pretty simple to sit in a dentist’s chair and get a root canal, after all.) The income tax for most of us is becoming like the payroll tax: a “simple” tax to compute, but an onerous one to pay. These burdens fall, inescapably, on wages. In Trump-world, things are different. There are more forms, but fewer, if any, taxes. And none of this may ever see any light of any day because, in the President’s mind at least, his will trumps the IRS and the law. To expand on the late billionaire Leona Helmsley’s observation: maybe transparency, like taxes, is just for the little people.<doc-sep>
President Trump on Wednesday announced he would refuse to release his tax returns to the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and we all know what that means – the mainstream media is about to have a fit and declare yet another “constitutional crisis.” From where I sit, the president is absolutely right to refuse to turn over his returns, and congressional Democrats demanding his returns don’t have a leg to stand on. It was only a few years ago that, as the leader of the largest organization in the country with the words “tea party” and “patriots” in its name, I had to deal with an outlaw Internal Revenue Service that was targeting my organization, my colleagues, my donors, and my supporters, all because of our political beliefs, in violation of our First Amendment rights. TREASURY WON'T MEET HOUSE DEMS' DEADLINE TO PROVIDE TRUMP TAX RETURNS, MNUCHIN SAYS Consequently, I got to see, up close and personal, what happens when the IRS and the administration of the tax code is weaponized for political use. House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal, a Democrat from Massachusetts, is behind the Democrats’ latest weaponization of the tax code. He should be ashamed of himself. Neal, it has been reported, spent months crafting his strategy. He knew that if he simply opened his first committee meeting as chairman by saying, “Okay, gentlemen, we Democrats are now in the majority, and, as such, I’m going to use a provision from the 1924 Revenue Act that, to my knowledge, has never before been used against a sitting president, to get my hands on the president’s tax returns,” his allies in the mainstream media wouldn’t have been able to cover for him. So he plotted, he schemed, he cogitated, and eventually he invented a different tack – “legislative oversight” of the IRS policy of auditing the returns of sitting presidents. "Consistent with its authority,” Neal wrote in his letter to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig demanding the president’s tax returns going back to 2013, “the Committee is considering legislative proposals and conducting oversight related to our Federal tax laws, including, but not limited to, the extent to which the IRS audits and enforces the Federal tax laws against a President. Under the Internal Revenue Manual, individual income tax returns of a President are subject to mandatory examination, but this practice is IRS policy and not codified in the Federal tax laws. It is necessary for the Committee to determine the scope of any such examination and whether it includes a review of underlying business activities required to be reported on the individual income tax returns.” Ah, legislative oversight. Neal says he needs to see the last six years of the President’s tax returns because it is necessary for his committee to determine the scope of the audits the IRS regularly conducts on a sitting president’s returns. But he doesn’t need to actually see President Trump’s returns to do that. All he needs to do is ask the IRS Commissioner a question: “Commissioner Rettig, would you please tell me the scope of an IRS audit conducted on the tax return of a sitting president?” Trump did not become president until 2017. Why does Neal need Trump’s returns from 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016? Moreover, if all he really wanted to determine was the scope of the standard audit conducted by the IRS on the tax returns of a sitting president, he could have just easily requested the relevant information from a previous president – say, Barack Obama, or George W. Bush – who has already chosen to make his tax returns public information. Further, if he is really interested simply in determining the scope of the standard audit conducted by the IRS on the tax returns of a sitting president, why does he need President Trump’s returns going back to 2013? President Trump did not become president until 2017. Why does Neal need Trump’s returns from 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016? The fact is, of course, Neal’s pursuit of Trump’s tax returns has nothing to do with legitimate committee oversight functions, and everything to do with Neal’s interests in damaging President Trump politically. That’s made clear by an examination of a newspaper article linked on Rep. Neal’s official House website.