民主党的周二投票公开公布前总统唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)的纳税记录，结束了一场围绕透明度的长达一年的法律和政治斗争，这场斗争还提出了关于党派小动作、纳税人隐私和政府审计的新问题。
“这不是惩罚性的。这不是恶意的问题，”众议院筹款委员会主席理查德·尼尔说，该委员会计划在几天内公布特朗普2015年至2020年的部分纳税申报单。
该委员会最初发布了同一时期的税收信息摘要。
尼尔马萨诸塞州的。周二，他表示，这一举动——沿着政党路线进行——完全符合公众利益，尽管联邦法律该法案通常禁止在未经许可或法院命令的情况下披露美国个人的纳税申报表。
合法地向三个国会税务委员会之一公布的IRS记录，根据联邦法律，“由委员会提交给参议院或众议院，或两者兼而有之。”换句话说，公开了。但是法令还规定，在这种情况下，纳税人的个人身份信息必须被编辑;该委员会表示，目前正在清理特朗普的申报表。
该委员会周二透露，议员们了解到没有审计尽管美国国税局的政策是每年进行一次，但这位前总统在2019年前任职期间的纳税申报单仍是如此。目前还不清楚国税局推迟审查的原因。
“这超越了政治，”尼尔说。
该委员会计划公布特朗普的记录，就在三周前委员会获得了它们随着民主党在众议院处于交出权力的边缘，该法案遭到了共和党人的强烈谴责。
尽管并非史无前例，但非自愿公开披露美国人的纳税记录是极不寻常和罕见的。
“方式和方法民主党人正在释放一种危险的新政治武器，这种武器远远超出了特朗普总统的范围，并危及每个美国人的隐私，”该委员会最高共和党人、德克萨斯州众议员凯文·布雷迪在一份声明中说。
多年来，民主党领导的委员会辩称，它主要是寻求特朗普的记录进行私人审查，以帮助指导有关总统道德和审计的立法。
“我们在这里的兴趣在于政策，”尼尔在2019年的一次采访中坚持说，当时该委员会启动了法庭斗争，以从美国国税局获得特朗普六年的记录，特朗普在任期间，财政部阻止了这一请求。
10月，众议院小组告诉美国最高法院特朗普的记录对于“审查‘公平税收管理立法，包括总统税收合规立法’的必要性”至关重要，而且[委员会]无法正确评估[国税局总统]审计项目的有效性或公平性...无法获得所需的材料。"
当这位前总统的法律团队质疑这些目标是出于政治动机发布特朗普私人信息的“借口”时，该委员会对这些说法提出了质疑。
“主席的请求有力地阐明并记录了该请求的立法需要，”该委员会告诉高等法院。法官们最终站在委员会一边。
美国广播公司新闻法律撰稿人、特朗普政府前司法部律师萨拉·伊斯古尔(Sarah Isgur)说:“我不认为这一转变会令人感到意外，但它可能会让国会在未来的法庭案件中处于不利地位。”。
“审查此案的法官和大法官相信委员会的话，他们是作为立法者而不是作为政治对手追求合法的目的，”伊斯古尔说。“在获得这些文件的几天内，在承诺的立法活动开始之前，玩弄政治将削弱他们在下一个案件中的可信度，他们会要求法院尊重他们的立法特权。”
民主党人坚持认为，特朗普手中的记录有助于形成要求国税局完成一项调查的立法提案强制性总统审计他们也在探索有关总统道德披露的新法规。
但随着共和党人将于明年1月接管众议院，这些举措可能不会长久。
布雷迪在谈到民主党可能开创的先例时说:“今后，国会中的党员几乎拥有无限的权力，可以通过获取并公开他们的私人纳税申报单来打击政治敌人，让他们难堪并摧毁他们。”。
一个国会机构此前从未发布过像筹款委员会(Ways and Means Committee)预计将发布的关于特朗普的那么多关于现任或前任总统的私人税务信息。
1974年，一个联合国会委员会检查过的前总统理查德·尼克松四年的纳税申报单，并公开发布了一份包含关键信息和分析的两党报告。
2014年，众议院共和党人投票授权公布美国国税局的一些机密税务记录，以调查对政治目标在中情局内部。
特朗普成为近40年来第一位不自愿公布税务记录的总统，不让公众看到他复杂的商业和金融交易的细节。
在周二发布之前，他的部分记录被泄露给了《纽约时报》已经显示他缴纳很少甚至没有联邦所得税在大约2000年到2020年的近二十年间。
一些专家说，委员会的决定不太可能产生更大的影响。
卡多佐法学院(Cardozo School of Law)法学教授、美国广播公司新闻(ABC News)法律撰稿人凯特·肖(Kate Shaw)说，“我不认为这为发布总统以外的其他纳税申报单开创了任何先例——特别是如果发布是为了寻求恢复总统纳税申报单的透明度规范的话。”。
“在我看来，国会似乎仍然应该寻求关于总统和总统候选人纳税申报的联邦立法，”肖说，“我不认为这次发布会阻止或应该阻止国会这样做。”
Democrats' release of Trump taxes raises questions about audits, transparency and privacy: ANALYSIS
Democrats' vote on Tuesday to publicly release former President Donald Trump's tax records caps a years-long legal and political battle over transparency that also poses new questions about partisan gamesmanship, taxpayer privacy and government auditing.
"This is not being punitive. This is not about being malicious," said Chairman Richard Neal of the House Ways and Means Committee, which plans, within days, to release portions of Trump tax returns from 2015-2020.
The committee has initially released a summary of the tax information from that same period.
Neal, D-Mass., said Tuesday that the move -- done along party lines -- was overwhelmingly in the public interest despite federal law that generally prohibits disclosure of individual Americans' tax returns without their permission or a court order.
IRS records lawfully released to one of three congressional tax committees can, under federal law, "be submitted by the committee to the Senate or the House of Representatives, or to both." In other words, made public. But the statute also says that personal identifying information about the taxpayer must be redacted in such an instance; the committee says it is currently scrubbing Trump's returns.
The committee revealed Tuesday that lawmakers learned there had been no audits of the former president's tax returns while he was in office before 2019, despite an IRS policy that they be annually performed. It remains unclear why the IRS delayed its review.
"This rises above politics," Neal said.
The committee's planned release of Trump's records, coming just three weeks after the committee obtained them from the IRS and with Democrats on the verge of surrendering power in the House, has drawn sharp condemnation from Republicans.
While not unprecedented, involuntary public release of an American's tax records is highly unusual and rare.
"Ways and Means Democrats are unleashing a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond President Trump and jeopardizes the privacy of every American," Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the committee's top Republican, said in a statement.
For years, the Democratic-led committee argued it was primarily seeking Trump's records for private review to help inform legislation governing presidential ethics and audits.
"Our interest here is in policy," Neal insisted in a 2019 interview as the committee launched its court fight to obtain six years of Trump's records from the IRS, a request that the Treasury Department blocked while Trump was in office.
In October, the House panel told the U.S. Supreme Court that Trump's records were essential to "examining the need for 'legislation on equitable tax administration, including legislation on the President's tax compliance,' and [that] the Committee 'cannot properly evaluate the effectiveness or fairness of the [IRS presidential] audit program... without access to the requested materials."
When the former president's legal team challenged those objectives as "pretext" for a politically motivated release of Trump's private information, the committee disputed those claims.
"The Chairman's request robustly articulated and documented the legislative need for the request," the committee told the high court. The justices ultimately sided with the committee.
"I don't think this about-face is coming as a big surprise, but it risks putting Congress at a disadvantage in future court cases," said Sarah Isgur, an ABC News legal contributor and former Justice Department attorney in the Trump administration.
"The judges and justices who reviewed this case took the committee at its word that they were pursuing a legitimate purpose as legislators and not as political opponents," Isgur said. "Playing politics within days of getting these documents -- and before there's been any of the promised legislative activity -- will undercut their credibility for the next case where they ask the court to defer to their legislative prerogatives."
Democrats insist Trump's records, now in hand, have helped shape legislative proposals to require the IRS to complete a mandatory presidential audit within 90 days of an inauguration and that they are also exploring new regulations around presidential ethics disclosures.
But with Republicans set to assume control of the House in January, those initiatives may be short-lived.
"Going forward, partisans in Congress have nearly unlimited power to target political enemies by obtaining and making public their private tax returns to embarrass and destroy them," Brady said of the precedent Democrats may be setting.
A congressional body has never before released as much private tax information about a current or former president as the Ways and Means Committee is expected to publish about Trump.
In 1974, a joint congressional committee examined four years of former President Richard Nixon's tax returns and publicly released a bipartisan report with key information and analysis.
In 2014, House Republicans voted to authorize the release of some confidential IRS tax records in a bid to investigate allegations of political targeting inside the agency.
Trump became the first president in approximately 40 years not to voluntarily release tax records, shielding from public view details of his complex business and financial dealings.
Before Tuesday's release, previously leaked portions of his records to The New York Times had showed he paid little to no federal income taxes over nearly two decades, between roughly 2000 and 2020.
Some experts said the committee's decision wasn't likely to have larger ramifications.
"I don't think this sets any precedent regarding the release of other tax returns, beyond those of presidents -- especially if the release is framed as seeking to restore a norm of transparency around presidential tax returns," said Kate Shaw, law professor at the Cardozo School of Law and an ABC News legal contributor.
"It does seem to me that Congress should still pursue federal legislation regarding the tax returns of presidents and presidential candidates," Shaw said, "and I don't think this release does or should prevent Congress from doing that."
