Fact-checking Trump's claims he's under audit

[babylonsister]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/04/politics/trump-audit-fact-check/index.html

Fact-checking Trump's claims he's under audit
By Donna Borak and Marshall Cohen, CNN
Updated 6:40 PM ET, Thu April 4, 2019

snip//

Facts First: No matter what Trump says, an audit would not prevent him and has not stopped past presidents from releasing their tax returns.

Here's where it gets tricky. Trump's personal tax returns are likely under audit, but it's not exactly what you suspect. Every year dating back to the early 1970s, the Internal Revenue Service has made it a regular practice to audit the personal tax returns of every sitting US president and vice president.

snip//

During the dramatic hearing before the House Oversight Committee, Cohen further questioned the existence of the President's audit. He told lawmakers that he asked Trump for a copy of the audit, so he could discuss the subject with reporters, but he "was never able to obtain one."

"Statements he made to me ... what he didn't want was to have an entire group of think tanks that are tax experts run through his tax return and start ripping it to pieces, and then he'll end up in an audit and he'll ultimately have taxable consequences, penalties, and so on," Cohen explained to California Democrat Rep. Jimmy Gomez when asked about Trump's tax audit.

Gomez followed up to ask if Trump was not actually under audit at the time?

"I presume that he is not under audit," Cohen said.

snip//

During the 2016 campaign, Trump released a letter from his tax attorneys that confirmed he was under audit. But the letter also said the IRS finished reviewing Trump's taxes from 2002 through 2008. Trump did not release his tax returns from those years, even though the audits were over.

(The letter was deleted from Trump's campaign website, but an archived copy is viewable here.)

So, yes, Trump has almost certainly been under audit since he took office in 2017, like every other American president. But we don't know the status of Trump's audits after 2008. And there's nothing legally stopping him from releasing his taxes even if they're being audited.

[Wellstone ruled]

1. Just curious .

As someone who has been through three Audits in the Seventies. You appear in person before a IRS Audit Agent at the Federal Building in your City with your Documents which they request in advance.

So if Donnie of little Truths is under Audit,there should be a paper trail of who the Auditor or Auditor's he met with and the time date and place from previous Audit's. The person who signed those Tax Statements or his Agent should have left a paper trail.

FOIA anyone?

BTW,after each Audit,we received a refund in our favor.

[grannyokie]

2. More Bull from the president of some of the United States

By the way babylonsister. I've been reading your post for years. You're one of my favorites.


Flashback: Richard Nixon Released Tax Returns While Under Audit
by MARK MURRAY

Even Richard Nixon released his taxes while under audit

Donald Trump has said that the ongoing audit of his taxes has prevented him from releasing them to the public.

But according to Joseph Thorndike, director of the Tax History Project at Tax Analysts, Richard Nixon released his taxes while under audit.

As Thorndike recently wrote:

Nixon was not a guy naturally inclined to be transparent. But in the fall of 1973, he was in a world of hurt concerning his personal finances. In particular, critics were suggesting there was something fishy about his tax returns. Nixon defended himself, even insisting to one dubious audience that “I’m not a crook.”

But the questions kept coming, and eventually Nixon tried to clear things up by releasing his tax returns. In December 1973 he made the returns public and asked the congressional Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation (today called simply the Joint Committee on Taxation) to examine them for errors. (You can see examine Nixon’s returns for yourself by visiting the Tax History Project, which archives all presidential tax returns.)

And as it turned out, the JCT did find problems in the returns – to the tune of $476,431. That’s real money (about $2.5 million in today’s dollars), and it reflected real errors on Nixon’s returns. (For details on the Nixon investigation, see my paper for the JCT’s 90th anniversary celebration in February.)

But here’s the crucial point: The JCT was not the only government body examining Nixon’s returns after he made them public. The IRS was doing it too. The president’s returns had already been audited once, but the agency began a second audit just before Nixon made his public release.

Ultimately, the IRS reached much the same conclusion as the JCT: Nixon owed almost half a million dollars in unpaid taxes and interest. Eventually, Nixon promised to make good on the deficiency.