DOJ says Treasury Department must hand over Trump tax information to House committee

The DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel has determined the Treasury Department must hand over former President Trump's tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee.

The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel has determined the Treasury Department must hand over former President Donald Trump's tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee. The opinion, posted Friday, says that while the committee "cannot compel the Executive Branch to disclose [tax information] without satisfying the constitutional requirement that the information could serve a legitimate legislative purpose," the Ways and Means Committee in this instance '"invoked sufficient reasons for requesting the former President's tax information." Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Richard Neal first requested six years' worth of Trump's tax returns in April of 2019, in addition to tax returns for eight of Trump's businesses, under a 97-year-old law that requires the Treasury secretary to "furnish" the returns of any taxpayer to the chairman of the tax-writing panel by request. In explaining the "legislative purpose" of the request, which Neal would need to prove under law in order to secure the returns, Neal said the committee had been "considering legislative proposals and conducting oversight related to our Federal tax laws, including ... the extent to which the IRS audits and enforces the Federal tax laws against a President."