Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-N.J., requested in a letter Wednesday to Rettig that he testify before the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight in the coming weeks to answer questions about tax compliance related to the New York Times' report and issues with coronavirus stimulus payments. Pascrell also urged the agency to honor the Ways and Means Committee's request for Trump's tax returns in light of the Times report.
"Left unaddressed by your agency, the revelations of Mr. Trump's abuse and malfeasance threaten public confidence in the IRS and the very legitimacy of our federal tax system," Pascrell said in the letter.
The Times reported Sunday that Trump has repeatedly used business losses to negate potential tax liabilities throughout his career as a real estate developer and celebrity entertainer. The somewhat routine maneuver of using net operating losses in either a retroactive or prospective manner has meant that for many years, Trump paid little or no federal income tax, according to the Times. In 2016 and 2017, Trump paid only $750 in federal income taxes, the newspaper said.
Pascrell told Rettig that allowing the revelations in the Times' report to go unaddressed by the IRS could undermine confidence in the federal tax system. Testifying before his oversight subcommittee, as well as honoring the full panel's request for Trump's returns, would be fruitful steps Rettig could take to restore taxpayers' trust, according to Pascrell.
The lawmaker also sent a letter to Trump himself Wednesday, chastising the president for the details included in the Times' report and urging him to release his tax returns.
"I urge you to release your tax returns as every one of your predecessors has done for more than 40 years and set the record straight," Pascrell said in the letter to Trump.
Pascrell was selected to become the oversight subcommittee chairman last month following the death of Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., the previous chairman. Pascrell told Law360 he shared a passion for ensuring fairness in tax administration with Lewis, who died July 17.
Pascrell made clear after being selected by committee Democrats that he wanted to examine Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's denial of the tax-writing panel's request for Trump's individual and business tax returns. He said he would be interested in summoning IRS and Treasury officials to hearings to discuss tax administration issues, including their handling of the committee's request for Trump's tax returns.
The Ways and Means chairman, Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., made a request in April 2019 for Trump's tax information, which the government rebuffed. The request, under Internal Revenue Code Section 6103
, was made to allow the committee to effectively review the IRS' internal processes for auditing the president's tax returns, Neal said.After the administration likewise flouted a later subpoena, Neal sued to enforce it. The case remains pending in D.C. federal court.
The IRS didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
--Additional reporting by Alan K. Ota and Joshua Rosenberg. Editing by Neil Cohen.
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