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Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

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You are here: Home / Open Threads / The House Ways & Means Committee had a great reason to release those returns…

The House Ways & Means Committee had a great reason to release those returns…

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It looks like someone else has a draft of a post about Trump’s tax returns, so I’ll keep this brief, but to follow up on a post from yesterday, in which I erroneously speculated that there wasn’t time for oversight since Trump ran out the clock with court challenges, it appears the House Ways & Means Committee had a great reason to release the returns after all:

(TPM) The IRS dozed through most of its obligations to audit Trump during his presidency, the panel found, concluding that it violated an agency program which mandates that the tax returns of every President be audited annually. In Trump’s case, the returns weren’t audited for his first two years in office — when Republicans held a governing trifecta.

The revelation that the IRS was asleep at the wheel buttresses the argument that the committee used to justify its request for Trump’s returns: that if the IRS isn’t doing its job, Congress needs to know in order to consider legislation to fix the problem. And yet, for the aforementioned losers and haters who demanded scrutiny not only of Trump’s tax returns, but those of every President, it’s a hollow victory: Trump has been out of office for years, and the report shows largely that he escaped scrutiny of his finances while in power, thanks in part to his position of power.

After years of stonewalling and delay, the panel finally received Trump’s tax returns from the IRS last month. It voted on Tuesday to release the records themselves, with redactions, to the public.

TPM reporter Josh Kovensky writes that the report “reveals that the IRS was stunningly lax in its treatment of Trump, but doesn’t go so far as to speculate on the cause: incompetence, fear, or corruption.” Why not all three? Anyhoo, good call, House Ways & Means Committee!

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

67Comments

  2. 2.

    Leto

    You mean the IRS, which was under Republican control and refused to follow black letter law, didn’t perform its duties? Color me shocked! Shocked I tell you! It’s almost like it was a continuous pattern of absolute corruption in everything associated with Trumpov’s presidency.

  5. 5.

    Old School

    TPM is paywalled for me (I know, I should support them), but here’s a Steve Benen piece at Maddowblog explaining the history of the program.  Sitting president’s returns have been audited annually since Nixon.

  6. 6.

    pajaro

    These guys.

    There are the agencies, like the Department of State, that they wrecked, and then, there are the ones that they flat out corrupted, like IRS, GSA and the Secret Service.

  7. 7.

    Ken

    I think I read last night that he wasn’t even being audited for the years before 2017?  If that’s so, then when he said he couldn’t release those returns because he was being audited, that was two simultaneous lies — there isn’t any law forbidding release of returns during audits, and the returns weren’t even being audited.

    For anyone else that might qualify as some sort of record, but he routinely managed to stuff three or more lies into a single sentence.

  8. 8.

    piratedan

    @pajaro: and if you couple that with all of the people they drove out of the civil service, it just shows what a big lift there is that has to be done to number one, put bodies at desks; two.. then train them up to be competent, all with the looming specter that if we elect another Trump, it could all be undone… yeesh.

    It takes time and good people to repair.

  9. 9.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    stunningly lax wrt trump but the intense audits of Comey and McCabe were just a big coinky-dink…?

  10. 10.

    Burnspbesq

    incompetence, fear, or corruption

    Let me suggest another, more benign, possibility: lack of resources. Y’all will surely recall what successive Republican-controlled Congresses did to the Service’s funding. Don’t have time to double-check the data, but IIRC headcount is down over 30k since I worked for the Office of Chief Counsel in the 1990s. And yes, the Service still has that little machine shop adjacent to its big computer center in West Virginia, where it makes replacement parts for computers that are so long past due for replacement that the manufacturers can no longer support them.

  11. 11.

    Leto

    @piratedan: and you also had Trumpov/Republicans pushing hard the rule change for civil servants to where they could be fired at any time, for any reason. It was yet another way to hollow out the government of experienced, professional people and replace them with sycophants.

  12. 12.

    ian

    @piratedan:

    all with the looming specter that if we elect another Trump, it could all be undone…

    I haven’t heard the Trumpies say it in a while, but for a large chunk of 2021 they were constantly talking about the need to fire and replace large chunks of the Federal Government with loyalists.

    Googling tells me they are still proposing this plan. 

    A few highlights:

    former White House aides are planning to revive the controversial Schedule F, a job classification system that would take current federal workers in “policy-related” positions out of the competitive service, stripping them of civil service protections and making them effectively at-will employees.

    “We need to make it much easier to fire rogue bureaucrats who are deliberately undermining democracy or, at a minimum, just want to keep their jobs,” Trump said.

    Those involved in the effort to revive Schedule F told Government Executive last week that they have identified 50,000 federal employees that could be fired under the proposed new authority, although they hope to fire only a fraction of that total to create a “chilling effect” to keep the rest of them in line.

  13. 13.

    Edmund Dantes

    @Leto: original irs head under trump was an Obama appointee. Guess they knew what they wanted to do once they were out of office. Cause they caved to the pressure of not auditing trump.

     

    also no leaks from the irs that the work they were supposed to be doing wasn’t being done?

  14. 14.

    divF

    @Ken:

    Obligatory:

    “I was reading a sign high on the wall behind the bar:

    ONLY GENUINE PRE-WAR AMERICAN AND
    BRITISH WHISKEYS SERVED HERE

    I was trying to count how many lies could be found in those nine words, and had reached four, with promise of more…”

    – Dashiell Hammett, The Continental Op

  15. 15.

    JML

    @Burnspbesq: the resources issue is a significant one. It’s super unpopular to pour money into tax enforcement…but it’s actually very good for the country for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the revenue generation.

    The IRS really has a problem with dealing with the wealthy in that the time & resources needed to actually collect from those lying, lawyered-up, tax-evading dickweeds is pretty massive. Plus, they don’t have the resources to counter to the PR problems of “I’m being unfairly singled out for reasons!” BS that every one of this these right-wing lying shitbags will throw around as soon as they’re told to pay their goddamn taxes like the rest of us.

    But of course after a republican administration things are really in dire straights: they starve the resources, they ruin the morale, the drive out competent administrators in favor of idiot partisan hacks, and they set up agencies that are really important to making this country work for everybody into the enemy. This is one more reason why I will never, ever, vote for a goddamn republican.

  16. 16.

    Ruckus

    @Leto:

    “It’s almost like it was a continuous pattern of absolute corruption in everything associated with Trumpov’s presidency.”

    Say it isn’t so! This great shithole of an effort to create an actual human, give him money and power was a waste of humanity? I’m shocked, shocked I say to know that there was elected to the highest office in the land a barely humanoid likeness, a not yet discarded example of how bad humanity can get, a man with an IQ of dried turd, and a character to match actually was considered a leader by humans without the capacity to create or hold an actual thought in their tiny hateful minds.

  17. 17.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Burnspbesq: I believe I have heard that offered as a defense, mr trump’s beautiful tax return was just too darn complicated (almost 500 separate pass-through companies?) for the IRS, which would be more convincing to me if it were annoucned at the time, and I can’t believe that’s a story I have missed or forgotten

  18. 18.

    Betty Cracker

    @Burnspbesq: Great point — the agency is scandalously under-resourced, and by design. Still, it seems like dealing with the sitting president’s returns would be kind of a high priority?

  19. 19.

    SFAW

    @Burnspbesq: ​

    Interesting that the posited “lack of resources” was fixed enough to audit Comey and McCabe.
    I mean, I understand your point, and it’s a reasonable theory/thesis, but sometimes it really IS “enemy action.”

  20. 20.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Edmund Dantes:

    John Andrew Koskinen (born June 30, 1939) is an American businessman and public official of Finnish descent. He served as the non-executive chairman of Freddie Mac from September 2008 to December 2011, retiring from the board in February 2012. On December 20, 2013, Koskinen was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to head the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as Commissioner of Internal Revenue. On December 23, 2013, Koskinen was sworn in as the 48th IRS Commissioner after being nominated by President Barack Obama. His term ended on November 12, 2017, with David Kautter becoming his interim replacement,[1] followed by Charles P. Rettig as his permanent replacement.

    So trump’s 2017 returns, which I believe were the first relevant ones, would have been some ways off. Rettig, whom David Cay Johnston described as a tax-avoidance specialist, was confirmed in Feb of ’18

    Sorry you can’t blame Obama for this.

  22. 22.

    Ruckus

    @Ken:

    “For anyone else that might qualify as some sort of record, but he routinely managed to stuff three or more lies into a single sentence.”

    He’s lied his entire life about everything concerning him, lying is his only actual talent. And he had a lot of practice, he’s been doing it for almost every one of his decades. I’ll give him the first 5 yrs, but the next 70 were one lie after another. I doubt he’d know the truth if it smacked him upside the head with a 2×4.

  23. 23.

    Wakeshift

    @ian: It’s a minor point relative to the scope and range of the issues with this, but it has to be said:

    ”rogue bureaucrat” is clearly an oxymoron

  24. 24.

    Burnspbesq

    @Edmund Dantes:

    also no leaks from the irs that the work they were supposed to be doing wasn’t being done?

    Whether or not a return is under examination is itself “return information” within the meaning of Code Section 6103. Unauthorized disclosure is a felony.

  25. 25.

    Geminid

    Between these tax returns and the J6 Commitee report that will (I think) drop tomorrow, investigative reporters and citizen journalists will have a good winter’s worth of work ahead of them.

    There will be a lot of stories, plus plenty of strings to pull on and bread crumb trails to follow. I lack the patience and knowledge to do the research but plenty of people have both, and I’m looking forward to seeing their work product.

  27. 27.

    Burnspbesq

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Rettig, whom David Cay Johnston described as a tax-avoidance specialist

    Fuck David Cay Johnston, he’s no more credible than Greenwald or Taibbi.

    I know Chuck and most of his former partners personally, and have worked with (or against) several of them over the years. The Hochman firm is a controversy shop (mostly civil), and they’ve very good at what they do, but nobody in their right mind would hire them for any sort of planning.

  28. 28.

    different-church-lady

    I mean, the idea that they just plain old forgot that they had this one specific task is just lunatic.

  29. 29.

    different-church-lady

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: If I understand things correctly, Trump’s ‘15, ‘16 and ‘17 taxes were filed while he was in office. Those returns are supposed to be audited under presidential condition. It’s likely at least the ‘17 return wasn’t filed until well into ‘18 if not much later.

  30. 30.

    trollhattan

    “We’re going to starve and shrink you because we hate you and do not wish to let you do your job. Also, pretty please if the taxpayer in question has “{D}” after their name, do your jobs like a rabid pitbull. Thanks, hugs!”

    See also: Postal Service.

  31. 31.

    Lapassionara

    Kevin Drum has read the NYT article about the taxes, so we don’t have to. Evidently Trump’s businesses showed losses every year he was in office, with exception of 2018, IIRC.

     

    ETA, I am sceptical that the losses are accurate.

  32. 32.

    Another Scott

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I vaguely remember a story about money laundering with condos with TFG’s name on them in various places around the world.  And seeing early stories about him “divesting” various businesses before he took office in 2017.

    Basically, IIRC, if his name was on a condo building with 100 units, then there would be 100 “businesses” attached – each unit was a separate “business” (I guess so that he could claim losses or bankruptcy if/when it didn’t sell for his inflated price).  The complexity was illusory, and a fully-funded IRS should be able to handle such things easily.

    And abusive property tax-avoidance schemes should obviously be reined in…

    Corrections welcome.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  33. 33.

    Roger Moore

    @JML:

    It’s super unpopular to pour money into tax enforcement…but it’s actually very good for the country for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the revenue generation.

    Is it super unpopular?  I know the Republicans have been pushing hard to convince people how horrible it is, but I haven’t seen any clear indication the public genuinely dislikes it.  IMO, the key is to frame it in terms of making the ultra-rich pay their fair share.

  34. 34.

    Roger Moore

    @Betty Cracker: ​
     

    Still, it seems like dealing with the sitting president’s returns would be kind of a high priority?

    Especially because it’s something they’re legally obligated to do. Blowing it off because they don’t feel like it shouldn’t be an option.

  36. 36.

    jonas

    So it appears that while the IRS studiously *avoided* auditing Trump’s returns, it *did* find the time to give James Comey and Andrew McCabe — two people prominently on Trump’s shitlist — both a thoroughgoing financial proctological exam. That is a really remarkable coincidence!

  37. 37.

    Alison Rose

    Zelenskyy has landed! The dude in the suit is Rufus Gifford, chief of protocol for the State Dept (whatever the fuck that means), but I’m not sure about the others. Someone said the guy in camo is Mark Milley, but I can’t tell from that angle. Not sure who the lady is, although she’s probably someone I should recognize.

  38. 38.

    Renie

    If trump’s tax returns show fraud and/or have lack of documentation to prove exemptions, deductions, etc., shouldn’t the tax preparers also be held liable?  What about the lawyers making all these shell companies, and pass through entities which turn out to be fraud?  The whole structure needs to be overhauled so this nonsense stops.  Too many wealthy people using tactics at the edge of legal to get away with not paying taxes.

  39. 39.

    jonas

    @Lapassionara: Well that’s the whole issue. As the recent trials in NY have shown, the Trump Org’s whole business model was basically low-balling tax assessments and then high-balling appraisals to get huge loans, giving executives perks w/o counting it as taxable compensation, etc.  Wash, rinse, repeat. It wasn’t a real estate empire — it was a ponzi scheme using ill-gotten tax write-offs to pay for loans and lines of credit that funded the Trumps lavish lifestyle.

  40. 40.

    randy khan

    I don’t know how that audit program works, but if it’s career employees, I can totally see fear as a motivation for not auditing Trump’s tax returns.  There was a huge risk that Trump himself would have outed the people doing the audits and their lives and the lives of their families would have been ruined.

  43. 43.

    jonas

    @Alison Rose: chief of protocol for the State Dept (whatever the fuck that means)

    It’s basically the DOS officer in charge of coordinating diplomatic meetings with the WH. Kind of a big deal — working out how the head of state will be received, if there will be a joint press conference, any cultural/ethnic issues to be addressed (should you shake hands with the premier’s wife first, or wait until he formally introduces you, etc.). Basically the producer of the “A Head of State is Visiting Washington Show.”

  46. 46.

    Mike in NC

    We’ve read where Fat Bastard had a plan after being reelected to install hundreds of loyal MAGAts in the federal bureaucracy to make it just another corrupt part of the sleazy Trump Organization. An offshoot of his scheme to become our dictator-for-life. He’s still convinced he’ll be back in the White House as long as he’s breathing.

  49. 49.

    WaterGirl

    @Roger Moore: There need to be consequences every single time Republicans give the finger to the rule of law.

    No need to mention Democrats here.  Since they have agency, there are always consequences!

  53. 53.

    Soprano2

    Hugh Hewitt puked up a column for the WaPo saying that TFG should be offered the “Agnew Option” to plead out and agree to not run for office again in exchange for not being indicted or prosecuted. It’s laughable – these people are all for “law and order” until one of their people is in trouble, it’s gross.

    Also, here’s an article from WaPo about how even small amounts of exercise protect against Covid being fatal. It’s a gift link, so anyone can read it. This is a relatively easy thing people can do to help themselves. https://wapo.st/3POqdQz

  57. 57.

    WaterGirl

    PSA: For everyone who is keeping their options open for potential life after twitter:

    Elon Musk started suspending journalists on a whim and recently threatened to suspend accounts tweeting about several competing social networks. We don’t know how long it will be before Spoutible is on Elon’s radar, but we encourage everyone to preregister.

    Preregister here: https://preregister.spoutible.com

    We have exceeded our goal of 100,000 preregistered users, and we expect to have over 200,000 users preregistered before we launch the beta. Preregistered users will have the chance to create their accounts seven days before everyone else, so please remember to preregister so you can have first dibs on your handle.

    We have sped up development to deliver a beta in mid-January. We can shorten development time by tabling certain features without sacrificing security.

    However, before launching the beta, we will have a full security audit by a third-party firm and make the report public. If the firm discovers any issues, we will fix those issues before launching the beta. Our user’s safety and security are our number one priority.

    Watch this space for more updates soon!

    Sincerely,
    Bot Sentinel Developers

    Sure seems like they are making some good choices.

  58. 58.

    billcinsd

    @Burnspbesq:Whether or not a return is under examination is itself “return information” within the meaning of Code Section 6103. Unauthorized disclosure is a felony.

     

    Except it is public knowledge that the President’s return is supposed to be audited, so are we all guilty of felonies? or just the Ways and Means committee and the journalists that covered this story

  59. 59.

    Roger Moore

    @Soprano2:

    Hugh Hewitt puked up a column for the WaPo saying that TFG should be offered the “Agnew Option” to plead out and agree to not run for office again in exchange for not being indicted or prosecuted.

    Even he admits it’s ridiculous, since Trump would never take the deal if it were offered.

  60. 60.

    oklahomo

    @WaterGirl: I have been pleasantly surprised by both Mastodon and Post.  Late last night Twitter notifications and timeline feeds really took a nosedive.  My engagement on twitter is barley a nudge on the meter; both Post and Mastodon are really rocking.  Also going to try Spoutible.  Anything for an excuse to not use Instagram.

  61. 61.

    sab

    @Burnspbesq: You are naive for a lawyer. Nothing on Trump but super audit on Comey and McCabe? I do tax prep and I have had one client super-audited in 40+ years practice

    ETA This is the kind of shit that Nixon did and we forgot. Why everyone was so angry with Nixon back in the day. Didn’t just do bad stuff as president. Corrupted all the non-political parts of the executive branch.

  62. 62.

    Geminid

    @Roger Moore: I would not want a plea deal where Trump got any leniency at all in return for agreeing not to run for public office. He and his supporters would twist this into being the prime motivation for his prosecution.

    If Trump wants out of politics he can do it the old-fashioned way, either by chickening out or by proceeding to lose either the nomination contest or the general election. I think the latter would be better because he would drag down other Republican candidates too.

  63. 63.

    Ken

    @jonas: It’s basically the DOS officer in charge of coordinating diplomatic meetings with the WH. Kind of a big deal — working out […] any cultural/ethnic issues to be addressed

    I think I’ll add that to my list of “jobs that must have been absolute hell under Trump.”

  64. 64.

    Roger Moore

    @Geminid: ​
     

    I would not want a plea deal where Trump got any leniency at all in return for agreeing not to run for public office.

    I wouldn’t accept any kind of agreement with Trump that depends on him promising something, since he can’t be trusted to honor his promises. Unless there’s a very solid enforcement mechanism- and I don’t believe there could be one with the current Supreme Court- it isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

  65. 65.

    Geminid

    @Roger Moore: You could have a sentence suspended with that condition. I think this is done in other criminal cases. But like I said there are good reasons against such a plea deal regardless of enforceability.

    And as to the Agnew deal: the key provision was his resignation. Spiro Agnew had no electoral future. Trump does but I think it’s a losing one.

  66. 66.

    Burnspbesq

    @Roger Moore:

    Is it super unpopular?

    it’s super unpopular among the targets of enforcement action—the vast majority of whom are not rich. Rather, they are small business owners who get into cash flow difficulties and try to get out by delaying deposits of employees’ withheld income and FICA taxes.

    There’s a reason why every IRS Chief Counsel field office has a cadre of attorneys who are cross-credentialed as Special Assistant U.S. Attorneys. SAUSAs can appear in Bankruptcy Court, and without them DOJ Tax Division’s workload would far exceed what it could handle.

  67. 67.

    J R in WV

    @Roger Moore: ​

    TFG should be offered the “Agnew Option” to plead out and agree to not run for office again in exchange for not being indicted or prosecuted.

    This is ludicrous — how would you compel TFG to adhere to the agreement. He breaks his word on a whim, and if he started to rise in the polling he would forget all about his Agnew agreement. “What agreement!! I don’t remember any agreement!” he would say.

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