On the strength of the Times’s tax story, Democrats in Congress are calling anew for the public release of his returns -- and for a full investigation of the steps that Trump and his siblings took regarding the estate and gift taxes they paid on their inherited wealth.

Democrats’ Plans

“It is imperative that the IRS fully investigate these allegations and prosecute any violations to the fullest extent of the law,” said Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, in a letter to Rettig Wednesday. Senator Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican who chairs the Finance panel, said Wednesday that he hadn’t read the Times report, but added that Trump “may have to give up those returns, I don’t know.”

“If I was him, I wouldn’t want to give them up,” Hatch said.

After January, Trump may have little choice. Congressional Democrats have said they want to invoke a little-used law that allows chairmen of the House and Senate tax-writing committees to review private tax returns and release them to the full chambers. Republicans, who currently control both panels, have shown no interest in seeing Trump’s returns -- but political analysts believe Democrats could win control of at least the House in November’s midterm elections.

The new allegations will only spur Democrats to put more pressure on Rettig, said Joseph Thorndike, the director of the Tax History Project at Tax Analysts, a trade publication. They “add fuel to the fire, but the fire’s already roaring,” he said.

Potential Penalty

The Times’s report said that Trump’s parents, Fred and Mary Trump, and their estates paid $52.2 million in estate and gift taxes, when they should have paid an amount closer to $550 million. (Fred Trump died in 1999 and Mary Trump in 2000.) The newspaper’s report said the family reported low valuations on much of the rental empire that Fred Trump acquired over the years and passed to his children.

The IRS can set civil penalties as high as 75 percent of any underpayment, plus interest. So before accounting for any interest, the Times’s allegations could mean a penalty of $373.4 million if proven.

Tax lawyers generally agreed on Wednesday that the situation presents a lot of intriguing possibilities. For example, even though the statute of limitations has passed in most instances, it’s possible that Fred Trump didn’t file gift tax returns for some years, said Caplin & Drysdale’s Kaufman. If so, the IRS wouldn’t need to cite fraud in order to open an audit -- despite the long delay -- she said.