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House Panel Releases Nixon Tax Details in Bid for Trump Returns

House Panel Releases Nixon Tax Details in Bid for Trump Returns

(Bloomberg) -- House Democrats released documents Thursday to show that their attempt to get President Donald Trump’s tax returns has historical precedent.

The House Ways and Means Committee voted to publish documents detailing how members of a congressional tax committee used their authority to get President Richard Nixon’s tax information and that the Internal Revenue Service immediately complied, according to a statement from Chairman Richard Neal.

House Panel Releases Nixon Tax Details in Bid for Trump Returns

The documents show that the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation requested several years of Nixon’s tax returns from the late 1960s to the early 1970s to see if he improperly took tax breaks. The documents also include analysis of Nixon’s tax returns, as well as those of his daughter, Patricia.

House Democrats are hoping this will bolster their argument to obtain Trump’s tax returns, which is currently working its way through the courts. No Republicans voted in favor of releasing the information.

The tax code gives the House Ways and Means Committee chairman the authority to request private taxpayer data, including that of the president. The committee can then vote to release that information to the whole House, effectively making it public.

“I think it highlights the patience that I’ve exhibited and the idea of resisting the emotion of the moment and instead carefully seeking documentation as to how 6103 has been used,” Neal said, in reference to the relevant section of the tax code.

Auditing Presidents

House Democrats have been trying since April to obtain six years of Trump’s personal and business tax returns. The Treasury Department and IRS have refused requests and subpoenas for the documents. Neal sued for the tax returns earlier this month.

Democrats say they need to see the documents to see whether the IRS is doing its job of annually auditing presidents and vice-presidents. Republicans say Democrats are using the tax code to target a political foe.

“It was a travesty and unfair,” said Representative Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the committee. “What happened here today underscores our main principle: These is no legitimate legislative purpose for seeking the president’s tax returns, and all Democrats seek to do is to make those tax returns public, in violation of federal law.”

Releasing taxpayer data has been used in political disputes in recent years. In 2014, the committee, then led by Republicans, voted to release the tax information of several conservative political non-profits as the panel sought to investigate former IRS official Lois Lerner about whether she used her position to target right-leaning groups.

The lawsuit to get Trump’s tax returns could take months, if not years, to be resolved in court. New York also passed a law that would allow the tax committee to request state tax returns for New York residents and businesses.

Trump sued earlier this week to block House Democrats from making a request for his New York tax returns.

Obtaining Trump’s New York state tax returns would only be a partial political win for Democrats, who are hoping to learn more about the president’s finances ahead of the 2020 elections. State tax returns show much of the same information as federal returns about income and tax breaks, but don’t provide much information on out-of-state income or charitable contributions.

Trump bucked decades of tradition in refusing to release his tax returns when he ran for president. He said voters don’t care about his taxes and that the financial disclosures he’s already released are more than adequate.

To contact the reporters on this story: Laura Davison in Washington at ldavison4@bloomberg.net;Kelly Zegers in Washington at kzegers@bloomberg.net;Colin Wilhelm in Washington at cwilhelm9@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Anna Edgerton, Laurie Asséo

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