There's a quick and easy way to see Trump's tax returns
By Daniel Hemel
April 11
Daniel Hemel is an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
State lawmakers across the country are pursuing creative methods to force President Trump to release his federal income tax returns before he can run for reelection in 2020. Unfortunately for citizens interested in greater presidential transparency, those efforts are likely to fail. ... There is, however, a much easier way for state lawmakers to force the disclosure of Trump’s tax information: publishing the state tax returns already in their possession, which would reveal much of the same information appearing in his federal documents.
....
The ballot-access approach faces three formidable obstacles: First, Democrats control both the governor slot and legislatures in only half a dozen states. Republicans are likely to block the bills from becoming law anywhere else. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, is
widely expected to veto his state’s ballot-access bill.
....
New York’s Department of Taxation and Finance keeps copies of Trump’s state returns from
as far back as 1990. Current New York law
prohibits state tax officials from disclosing an individual’s returns, but the New York legislature could amend that law to require the state tax authority to post the president’s returns from the past quarter-century on its website. For the sake of evenhandedness, the legislature might apply the same rule to its other elected officials. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is unlikely to object: He
releases his returns every year, as do the state’s two senators, fellow Democrats
Charles E. Schumer and
Kirsten Gillibrand.
Federal law does not stand in New York’s way. The Internal Revenue Code
prohibits state officials from disclosing a taxpayer’s federal return, but it does not stop New York from disclosing information that Trump reports on his state forms.
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