前总统唐纳德·特朗普周一要求美国最高法院阻止众议院筹款委员会查看他的纳税申报单。
该委员会要求特朗普提供六年的回报,作为对美国国税局总统和副总统审计行为调查的一部分。
在提交给最高法院的请愿书中,特朗普指责该委员会以虚假借口寻求他的税收。
“委员会要求特朗普总统纳税申报的目的与国税局的资金或人员问题无关,而是与向公众发布总统的税务信息有关,”请愿书说。
一家联邦上诉法院在8月裁定,纳税申报单应该交给众议院委员会。该委员会于2019年首次寻求回报。
特朗普最近一次未能阻止这一请求是在周四,当时华盛顿特区巡回上诉法院驳回了他的请求,即重新考虑其三名法官之一的一致意见,即批准委员会获取这些文件。
虽然特朗普的团队声称,该小组获得纳税申报单的努力纯粹是政治性的,但该委员会坚持认为,这些文件对于评估美国国税局的表现非常有价值。总统审计。
“法律一直站在我们这边,”众议院筹款委员会主席理查德·尼尔说。在周四裁决后的一份声明中说。“前总统特朗普试图推迟不可避免的事情,但法院再次肯定了我们的立场。我们已经等得够久了——我们必须尽快开始监督国税局的强制性总统审计项目。”
争议的核心是一项联邦税法,该法授权财政部“应提供”筹款委员会要求的税务信息,特朗普的律师认为这项法律违宪。
自2015年特朗普竞选总统以来,民主党人一直吵着要看一眼他的纳税申报单。不公开文件打破了几十年的先例。
除了个人纳税申报受到追捧,特朗普还面临刑事调查的压力他的个人事务,持有政府文件卸任后和阻止认证的努力2020年选举结果。
Donald Trump asks Supreme Court to block House committee from getting tax returns
Former President Donald Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to block the House Ways and Means Committee from accessing his tax returns.
The committee has requested six years' worth of Trump's returns as part of an investigation into IRS audit practices of presidents and vice presidents.
In his petition to the Supreme Court, Trump accused the committee of seeking his taxes under false pretenses.
"The Committee's purpose in requesting President Trump's tax returns has nothing to do with funding or staffing issues at the IRS and everything to do with releasing the President's tax information to the public," the petition said.
A federal appeals court ruled in August that tax returns should be handed over to the House committee. The committee first sought the returns in 2019.
Trump most recently failed to block the request on Thursday when the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals shot down his request to reconsider a unanimous opinion from one of its three-judge panels approving the committee's access to the documents.
While Trump's team claims the panel's bid to obtain the tax returns is purely political, the committee insists the documents are valuable to assess how the Internal Revenue Service performs. presidential audits.
"The law has always been on our side," House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., said in a statement after Thursday's ruling. "Former President Trump has tried to delay the inevitable, but once again, the Court has affirmed the strength of our position. We've waited long enough—we must begin our oversight of the IRS's mandatory presidential audit program as soon as possible."
At the heart of the dispute is a federal tax law mandating that the Treasury Department "shall furnish" tax information requested by the Ways and Means Committee, a law Trump's lawyers suggest is unconstitutional.
Democrats have been clamoring to get a glimpse of Trump's tax returns since 2015 when he launched his bid for president and broke decades of precedent by not releasing the documents.
Besides having his personal tax returns sought after, Trump is also facing pressure by criminal probes into his personal business, possession of government documents after leaving office and efforts to block the certification of the 2020 election results.