New York is on the cusp of enacting a law that could help congressional Democrats gain access to President Donald Trump’s state tax returns, potentially opening the door for Congress to obtain tax records for any New York resident or business they want to investigate.
That has some tax and ethics experts worried that Republicans and Democrats alike could use the provision and a similar one at the federal level to target political opponents or others to advance policy goals.
The question of accessing the tax records of a public official started when Trump broke from decades of precedent by refusing to release his federal returns as a presidential candidate, despite promising to be an “open book” about them before he ran for office.
These tax-return disclosure laws should only apply to presidents and top-level government officials, not private citizens, said Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.
While Somin said there’s nothing wrong with seeing a president’s tax returns, New York’s measure is “written to allow the same thing to happen to politically controversial people.”
Partisan Targets
As an example, he said, Republicans could demand billionaire Democratic donor George Soros’ tax returns, or Democrats could target Charles and David Koch, whose donor network gives millions of dollars to Republicans.
Democrats have targeted the chief executive officers of major banks like JP Morgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon and Citigroup Inc.’s Michael Corbat; Republicans have wanted to know more about the Clinton Foundation, run by former President Bill Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Accessing their tax returns could become part of that process, experts said.
“New York and Democrats in Washington are setting a dangerous precedent where political parties go after their political enemies and try to release and embarrass and harass them,” said Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee.
The legislation, which the New York State Assembly could vote on this week, would give chairmen of the congressional tax committees access upon request to the state returns of any New York resident or business. The New York Senate passed the bill earlier this month and Governor Andrew Cuomo backs it.
Mnuchin’s Refusal
Those lawmakers can already access federal tax returns using a 1924 law, even though Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin refused on Friday to comply with a subpoena for six years of Trump’s personal and business returns.