irs since 1977 to audit presidential tax returns. in the trump era, they simply didn t do it, and in fact, the only audit they initiated was initiated on the very same day that they received the letter from chairman richie neal asking under section 6103 for access to these returns and information about the audits. that was one big shockerme. but then as we examined the returns themselves, we ve talked about this, we ve speculated about what mr. trump was doing with his businesses to avoid taxes, but to see two years where he paid $750 in income tax to the federal government, one year where he paid zero, and then all the various ways that he obviously used undocumented or unsubstantiated expenses to avoid paying taxes, it became very clear to me that something is dramatically wrong here and
of tax returns. you ve talked about the legislative, the policy element here. i want to play for you what you said. this is april of 2019 about the goals of, the requests of these returns. let s be clear, we re not asking for these returns to be made public. it s not even clear that other members of the committee, myself included will ever see any of this information. this is specific to chairman neal because he needs this information in order to frame the questions that we are trying to answer and the policies that we are trying to potentially enact. so now why are they being made public? well, because we were able to do the analysis. we didn t ask when we sent the request under 6103 in april of 2019. we didn t ask then for the irs to publicize the documents. we asked them to provide them to us so that we can do the analysis required. after having done that analysis, we made the determination that
release donald trump s personal tax returns. our political and legal team is here standing by, so let s get right to it. i m lindsey reiser in for hallie jackson, and let s go into the hearing right now. 6103, given the confidential nature of the subject matter, i now move that pursuant to claus 2g1 of house rule 11, the committee proceed to executive session. mr. chairman if i may be recognized. mr. chairman i ask unanimous consent if any taxpayer information is public as a result of the mark of today, the entirety of today s executive transcript be made public as well. this transparency is precedent as we ve discussed in 2014 and 2019. i think we re in broad agreement with the gentleman s request. is there any objection? hearing none, the question is on the ranking member s request that the documents not the
appendicies and so on. and in case you were wondering, tuesday is not going to be out of the mix necessarily either. just a moment ago, i got a release on my phone from the house ways and means committee. remember, they are the ones that just received that kind of clearance from the supreme court to get their hands on donald trump s tax returns from the irs. they noticed their own meeting on tuesday, to discuss documents protected under internal revenue service code section 6103. those are the tax returns that they have had kinds of theoretically in their possession, and neither can confirm or deny their existence, they will have the meeting on tuesday, and a necessary step towards any other way to potentially make them public in the future. not a great start to the week next week for donald trump. so let me talk about the tuesday thing. can i be completely honest and be transparent for our viewers, we didn t know you had seen the alert, and i didn t want to throw you a question that
former! yeah, very important words. obviously oversight is an incredible part of this. you just outlined that this is been years in the making. my question to you realistically, when democrats get their hands on this, or when the congress committee gets their hands on this, you re only going to be in power for a few more weeks. realistically, what can ways and means do with the information the committee leans from these tax returns? well, 6103, subsection j, subsection sorry f is very clear. we are not allowed to scream to the heavens when we get this document. we have to honor, it s confidential, we will decide one way or another what will be made public. and i believe that the entire nation should have the main knowledge from this report of what happened, and how did the president of the united states