Former cia directors to look at the intelligence organizations operations. At 9 00 pm eastern on after words political commentator Candace Owens on why black americans should vote republican in her book, she is interviewed by matt schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union. This weekend on cspan2. The house ways and means subcommittee on oversight held a hearing on the use of loopholes to avoid paying taxes. The subcommittee look at potential changes to the law to prevent wealthy americans from getting out of income tax. Good afternoon. Welcome to you all. Weve got a great response in a sharp period of time and our second. On the Affordable Care act on the Oversight Committee. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. In compliance with regulations, with committee proceedings, the First Official virtual oversight subcommittee hearing in the ways and Means Committee. Before we turn to todays important topic i want to remain remind you about procedures to navigate this platform. First consistent with regulations, the committee will keep microphones to limit background music and noise. Members are responsible for unmute themselves when they seek recognition or are recognized for five minutes. Members and witnesses must have their cameras on at all times. Even if you leave for a second, leave your camera on. Third, dispense with the practice of observing the gibbons pool, alternating between minority and majority and because there are other members that are on. After all subcommittee members have asked their questions, we will listen your ready order for subcommittee members. Without objection, representative Suzan Delbene will serve as chair in that experience. I thank you for offering continued patience as we navigate the technology, to continue serving our country together in this time of need. With that i will now turn to the important topic of todays hearing, taxpayer fairness. Our hearing today will focus on the issue of tax fairness. I welcome colleagues, i welcome the witnesses. I must note this is the first subcommittee meeting since the passing of john lewis. John was chairman and the democratic member of the subcommittee the past 15 years. I first joined the committee in 2007 because i wanted to work with john. He led the subcommittee with the same grace and sense of purpose with which he led his life. I cannot fill his shoes but while his files are not identical i will do everything in my power to make john proud. As the subcommittee charged with conducting oversight of the programs within the umbrella of the ways and Means Committee our jurisdiction is broad. Focusing on one of the most critical components of american government. Our voluntary tax system. Historically the United States has had an excellent record of compliance because tax laws, americans pay their taxes assuming the system is fair for all. Whether you are rich as rockefeller or just a regular joe. For five years, trump has refused to disclose his tax returns. Trump has broken with the history of every president since president nixon and sabotaged public faith in taxes. Since 2017 i have let congresss effort to bring sunlight to Donald Trumps business and personal tax returns. The law is clear. Under 26 United States code section 6103 f, committees legally and absolutely entitled to see Donald Trumps returns. Our responsibility to restore the Publics Trust in our system by ensuring the president s returns are audited impartially and without political interference. The chairman formally requested mister trumps returns in april of 2019. The administration through Steve Mnuchin and iris commissioner reddick has refused our requests. They have been breaking the law for 555 days. The house issued a subpoena. The administration refused to comply with the subpoena, another area our subcommittee will be looking into, subpoena powers under the constitution. Under the rules of the house. The houses request for tax returns is being stonewalled by a political partisan judge. Just two weeks ago in the New York Times, reported selfproclaimed billionaire donald trump paid only 750 in taxes in 2017, and in 2018. In ten previous years he paid no taxes. We have teachers, police officers, firefighters handling technologies, School Bus Drivers pay more in taxes. How do they feel when they see their leader pays less than they do. A tax system but with the supposed billionaire payless than teachers, secretaries and custodians is broken. That is why we are holding todays hearing. I want everyone watching us to know i personally invited irs commissioner reddick to join us today and he refused. I wonder why. What is he afraid of . Why is donald trump afraid to disclose his tax voluntarily. Is it because we may learn the true source of the president s socalled wealth is not clean . Or what dark forces is he beholden to . We have an excellent panel of witnesses, we have an Excellent Group of members here. Both sides of the aisle, answers to these questions, we look forward to the testimony. First i yield to my friend, mister kelly of pennsylvania for purposes of an opening statement, worked and served together on this committee. I look forward to working with you in this new capacity. Thank you, mister kelly. Thank you, the first hearing weve been able to do together. All of us know it was truly an honor to serve on the ways and Means Oversight Committee for john lewis, he is an inspiration not just to us but to every american. Mister lewis led the community with dignity and understood the importance of our subcommittee of the oversight plays in congress with the focus on making government more transparent and more accountable to the American People. In addition to being legislators we are americas watchdogs making sure their money, every penny of it, taxpayer dollars, are spent to their benefit. Therefore i am looking forward to continuing to work with you and hope we can find common areas where we can Work Together on behalf of the American People. Unfortunately i understand today may not be that day for this great bipartisan agreement, democrats will continue their religious effort to weapon nice the tax code for political purposes. Democrats have sought to publicize the president s tax returns since day one of his presidency, despite no evidence he did anything wrong other than legitimately winning the last president ial election. This issue was raised by my friends on the other side and amplified by many friends in the media like the New York Times. It is so much like groundhog day. Once again with the exception of not being about bills shadow my friends on the other side are using taxpayer money and our time to drag us through another Campaign Debate that was a result four years earlier in the 2016 president ial campaign, the spiegel people spoke at the ballot box across the commonwealth of pennsylvania and the country. This administration to be elected, this is like so many others is resistance including my friends on the other side and other allies, they cannot simply let go. They have been challenging the election of 2016 relentlessly and never accepted the outcome of it. Donald trump is on the ballot and across the country folks are going to get a chance to decide if he gets another term or not. Im confident they will grant the president another four years but why use this fine committee as an instrument of the Democratic National committee . Why put everyone through this groundhog day exercise, what is the substance of this politically partisan groundhog event today . To succeed in this effort, democrats have been aided by an unethical and likely illegal leak of the president s private taxpayer information. This is a stunning breach of public trust. If this can happen to a sitting president of the United States it can happen to any american. If this can happen to the president of the United States this can happen to anybody at any level with their we sit in the highest office of the lands or the lowest position in society. Broken in the relief of this information. I ask unanimous consent to enter both for the record. Mike is off. For mike is off. I am on. Mine is on. That will be included in the record. Can you hear me . I couldnt hear you before. Without objection. That is correct. Without objection. Underwhelming to say the least. The times alleges any illegal behavior by the president took place, currently state that more information is needed to evaluate specific transactions or items on the returns. Despite not having problems for the times and the need for more information, this could be legally problematic. This reporting is incredibly unfair and not objective. In my book i cant believe anyone could look that article and think this is a will written opinion. It is a manipulation a out letter. It is incredibly unfair, not objective reporting at all. If i wrote a 50 check to Catholic Charity and took a charitable deduction on my taxes and you could say the same thing, more information is needed to verify this but it could and might be legally problematic, we just dont know. And absurd premise. We need more information, what an audit is all about. The irs conducts an audit, make determinations about tax filings, the president said he is under audit and the New York Times indicates that he is under audit. That is exactly the way the process is supposed to work. Putting public pressure and suggest impropriety at the irs without evidence my mind the work that the irs employees do, and put political pressure and improperly put political pressure on them to reach a particular outcome. It weapon isis, where weapon rising, we know democrats dont like the president , and are unhappy with the last election results. So much for accepting the result of a legitimate election but in a democracy we dont go after the elected officials. We dont know because nothing has been put at us that the president had a serious problem. New york times say they dont know for sure, we need to let the irs employees do their work and finish their audit. The only Government Agency in a position to address any legal issues. My understanding is the president and Vice President s tax returns are examined every year. Since day one democrats tried to publicize the president s tax returns for the political agenda. In 2017, they claimed we needed to see his returns because of deep and mysterious ties to russia. Thats all we heard from the mainstream media. It must have been disappointing when the New York Times stated very quietly that the documents they received a do not reveal any previously unreported connections to russia. How sad for them. Since the investigation did produce the results they wanted, democratic colleagues simply look for other ways to weapon eyes the tax code. Attacking a sitting president of the United States. This is a dangerous procedure and one that i think sets a dangerous precedent and i fear the integrity of our tax code will suffer greatly as a result. The idea the president did something wrong by paying a low amount of income taxes, give me a break. Earlier this year we had a hearing on Corporate Income taxes and businesses pay all sorts of federal, state and local taxes, and on and on and on. Some years i paid more in taxes than others. Other years i paid no taxes. Why . Some years i was simply more profitable. We paid taxes on profits. Cherry picking income taxes in any given year tells a misleading story about Business Owners tax situation, the president has paid millions of dollars in all sorts of taxes over the years. Nevertheless democrats continues to suggest having a lower level of income Tax Liability in any given year means the president doesnt care about contributing to our country. Is that true . Absolutely not. The president has donated every single paycheck as president of the United States to the federal government. Those donations of totaled 1. 4 million, hardly in it for himself. If anyone in this room has donated one dollar more than they owe in taxes to the federal government. Going forward i hope this committee can find constructive ways to improve the lives of the American People so the Government Works better for them and not just political gamesmanship. I believe our constituents want us to Work Together to solve problems and not just for cheap political points, innuendo and insinuations and speculation. I havent seen any evidence at the irs, i havent seen any evidence of any impropriety on part of the president. The only thing is an unauthorized it might be illegal leak. You have gone over time. I went to work on seeing that information and be more concerned about that than this endless pursuit of trying to undo a duly elected president. I will yield back and really looking forward to what the panel has to say about the president s taxes. The next panel, thank you to our distinguished witnesses for taking time to appear before us today to discuss this important issue. And introduce all 5 witnesses and thank each of them for their testimony. Our first witness is ambassador norman eisen, senior fellow in government studies at the brookings institution. Most recently served as special counsel for the House Judiciary Committee 20192020 including during Donald Trumps impeachment. This is the author of a new book on donald trump, controlling the ethics issues that appear during the obama administration. Thank you and we are ready for you. Thank you, Ranking Member kelly and members of the subcommittee. I want to introduce the panel. I thought i am sorry. Our next witness will be Kathleen Clark at Washington University school of law in st. Louis, she specializes in government ethics, National Security, she led anticorruption, provided ethics training for federal, state agencies. Leandra lederman teaches courses on federal tax, directing tax program and indiana University School of law. The most frequently cited us tax filings. Was recently awarded a Research Grant focused on the transparency of tax laws. A fourth witness is steve rosenthal, in brookings tax policy against the urban institute, research focuses on federal income tax issues, previously served as legislation for the joint committee on taxation. Andy graywall, the professor of the university of iowa. It focuses on issues related to tax administrative and constitutional law. Each of the statements part of the record, ask that you summarize your testimony in 5 minutes or less. If you go over your time, i will let you know theres 30 seconds left. Thank you again, mister chairman. Thank you for inviting me to testify at this important hearing on taxpayer fairness as part of this distinguished panel. Our tax system favors the wealthy at the expense of average folks. It cuts generous breaks for Investment Income and rigidly taxes income earned by people working two and even three jobs to get by, in 20 this morning. Is more likely to be audited, this makes no sense. Donald trumps tax law made things even worse for regular americans. That law inflicted 1 trillion of damage on homeowners by taking away mortgage and Real Estate Tax deduction. This is a structure that favors those in tough income levels at the expense of everyone else, revelations about mister trumps tax returns making the poster boy, the lack of fairness indicating he paid no taxes for 10 or 15 years, only 750, 750, 24, 000 in 2016 paid. Donald trump deducted 70, 000 for haircare one year, paid his own daughter ivanka, now a white house official, 750, 000 consulting payments. For abandoning its failing Atlantic City casinos. It appears he didnt abandon them completely is rules required to get a refund, mister trump may have to pay back 100 million as a result. Thats the subject of the audit. We shouldnt have to rely on media revelations to learn these things. Even after the time story, that is because the president refuses to disclose his tax returns, a break with his predecessors going back decades. Now that we have at times reporting we have a better idea of why he may have held back those returns. Of all the secrets hidden in them, what concerns me the most is the president s massive debt. We know he will repay or refinance over 300 million worth of debt in the next four years and that is only a partial picture. Mister trump will need help covering his loans. That makes them vulnerable because the influence by bad actors or foreign powers including hostile ones, americans have to worry about what mister trump may do to curry favor with those who help him manage his debt level. His conflicting financial interests compound this with the original sin of this administration and the president with his refusal to divest those conflicted financial interests, another breach of norm, not just norms, from the first minute of his term he has violated americas original efflux law, the constitutional prohibition on president s taking things of value, or emoluments as it was referred to in the nineteenth century, fr