Washington,
D.C.–U.S. Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Mike Crapo
(R-Idaho) issued the following statement on House Ways and Means Democrats’
decision to release President Trump’s tax return information for multiple
years:
“I am deeply concerned by recent
erosions of taxpayer confidentiality and the dangerous precedent today’s
release sets, which undermines confidence in both our tax laws and
legislature. Taxpayers have a fundamental right to the certainty that
their tax and financial information is protected, remains confidential and will
not be commandeered to target political enemies or serve other partisan
political aims. The very section being cited today to authorize this
release was specifically intended to prevent the weaponization of taxpayer
information, and it is alarming to see it being used in this way.”
Background:
The
Internal Revenue Code protects the involuntary release of taxpayer information
and returns, with both criminal and monetary sanctions. Key protections
were put in place in the Tax Reform Act of 1976 in response to concerns that
tax information and tax enforcement were being used for political
reasons. A candidate’s public disclosure of his or her tax returns
or return information is not mandated by any federal law.
Statutory
protections of tax returns and return information require those in receipt of
such to carefully safeguard the material against inadvertent or intentional
release. The statute does not contemplate broadly publicizing this
material. When Congress last made public protected information on a
bipartisan basis in 2015 as part of a report on the IRS’s improper scrutiny
of tax-exempt organizations and management failures, it did so very
circumspectly, releasing only that information essential to the bipartisan
report. The report strove to redact, summarize or omit protected
information wherever possible. This report also did not directly focus on
the taxpayer information itself, but rather made limited use of the information
to explain how taxpayers had been negatively impacted and where the IRS had
made mistakes. Today’s rushed, partisan process to release President
Trump’s return information is a dangerous break
from precedent.