美国最高法院周二否认了前总统唐纳德·特朗普他要求阻止上诉法院命令他向众议院筹款委员会提交纳税申报表和其他财务记录。
法院没有对这一决定做出解释。没有明显的异议或投票失败。这是特朗普第四次在高等法院上诉中败诉赋税。
这一举动似乎是特朗普的路走到尽头了在长达数年的时间里，国会为了起草监督立法的利益，传唤了他的税务记录。
“财政部将遵守上诉法院的决定，”财政部发言人在回应周二高等法院行动的声明中表示。该机构包括掌握特朗普机密纳税申报单的美国国税局(Internal Revenue Service)，拒绝透露具体何时向委员会提供记录。
民主党控制的委员会认为，根据最高法院在2020年对同一场正在进行的纠纷的裁决中提出的指导方针，法官必须尊重信息请求背后的合法立法目的。他们说在这种情况下显然达到了标准。
“我们知道我们的案件的力量，我们坚持到底，遵循律师的建议，最后，我们的案件得到了最高法院的肯定，”主席理查德·尼尔众议员，D-Mass。在周二的一份声明中回应道。“自《大宪章》以来，监督原则一直得到维护，今天也不例外。这超越了政治，委员会现在将进行我们过去三年半以来一直寻求的监督。”
在共和党在中期选举中赢得众议院的多数控制权后，尼尔将于1月份将委员会主席一职移交给共和党人。
尽管特朗普声称传票是出于政治动机的钓鱼行动，但该委员会表示，这些文件对于起草“公平税收管理立法，包括总统税收合规立法”至关重要。
11月1日，首席大法官约翰·罗伯茨批准了临时行政中止下级法院关于特朗普纳税申报单和其他财务记录的命令。今天，罗伯茨正式解除了这一禁令。
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。
一个联邦上诉法院在8月一致裁定，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。
虽然特朗普的团队声称众议院小组获取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(Internal Revenue Service)如何进行总统审计很有价值。
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年特朗普竞选总统并通过不公布文件打破了几十年的先例以来，民主党人一直吵着要看一看特朗普的纳税申报单。
除了个人纳税申报单受到追捧，特朗普还面临着对其个人业务的刑事调查、离任后拥有政府文件以及阻止2020年选举结果认证的努力的压力。
Supreme Court rules Donald Trump must turn over taxes to House committee
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied former President Donald Trump's request to block an appeals court order that he surrender his tax returns and other financial records to the House Ways and Means Committee.
The court offered no explanation for the decision. There was no noted dissent or vote breakdown. It marks the fourth time Trump has lost a high court appeal related to requests for his taxes.
The move appears to be the end of the road for Trump in the yearslong saga of congressional subpoenas for his tax records in the stated interest of drafting oversight legislation.
"The Treasury Department will comply with the Court of Appeals' decision," a Treasury Department spokesperson said in a statement in response to Tuesday's high court action. The agency, which includes the Internal Revenue Service in possession of Trump's confidential tax returns, declined to say when exactly it would provide the records to the Committee.
The Democratic-controlled committee has argued that -- by the Supreme Court's own guidelines laid out in a 2020 ruling in the same ongoing dispute -- judges must defer to the legitimate legislative purpose behind a request for information. They said that standard was plainly met in this case.
"We knew the strength of our case, we stayed the course, followed the advice of counsel, and finally, our case has been affirmed by the highest court in the land," chairman Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., said in a statement reacting Tuesday. "Since the Magna Carta, the principle of oversight has been upheld, and today is no different. This rises above politics, and the Committee will now conduct the oversight that we've sought for the last three and a half years."
Neal will surrender chairmanship of the committee to a Republican in January after the GOP won majority control of the House in the midterm elections.
While Trump has claimed the subpoena is a politically motivated fishing expedition, the committee said the documents are critical for drafting "legislation on equitable tax administration, including legislation on the President's tax compliance."
On Nov. 1, Chief Justice John Roberts granted a temporary administrative stay of a lower court order regarding Trump's tax returns and other financial records. Today, Roberts officially lifted that stay.
The committee had 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 unanimously in August that tax returns should be handed over to the House committee. The committee first sought the returns in 2019.
While Trump's team claimed the House 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.
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.
