Today in the NYT there is a good editorial on why we ask Presidential candidates and Presidents to release their Tax Returns.
As we all know… the Drumpf is refusing to release his tax returns,
At first, Trump suggested he was prohibited from releasing the returns because of the audit, even though an audit carries no such stricture. (Ask Richard Nixon, who released his returns while being audited). Now Trump says his lawyers have advised him not to do so.
As the calls for transparency grow louder, here’s a rundown of the major moments and shifting explanations in the Trump tax-return saga
Do why do we ask for these documents?
The story begins in July 1969, when Congress eliminated a provision of the tax code that had allowed a sitting or former president to donate his papers to a public or nonprofit archive in exchange for a very large tax deduction. Congress’s rationale was that a president’s papers already belonged to the public.
which is kind of duh… but sometimes duh moments need law.
so what did Mr. Not A Crook do…. he went ahead and told everyone that he had archived his taxes 4 months before the act of congresses, those documents allegedly gave him 500k in deductions.
The write-off didn’t become public until 1973, when it was mentioned in passing during a lawsuit related to the Watergate break-in. Although the deed formally giving the papers to the National Archives was dated March 27, 1969, it turned out not to have been signed until April 1970, nine months after presidential document donations lost nearly all their tax benefits.
Although public outcry for an audit, Nixon refused and the IRS looked the other way.
There the story stalled until Oct. 3, 1973, when Jack White, a 31-year-old suburban reporter for The Providence Journal-Bulletin, broke the biggest story of his career. While big-time reporters prowled Washington for details about President Nixon’s taxes, White covered small-town politics and high-society events as manager of his paper’s bureau in Newport, R.I. But White, rumpled and easygoing, had a knack for earning the trust of sources. One source provided him with evidence that Nixon had paid taxes of only $792.81 in 1970 and $878.03 in 1971, despite having income exceeding $400,000.
bolding mine
aha!!! ¡Mentiroso!
After White’s article was published, demands rose for full disclosure. The next month, White’s colleague at the Providence paper, Joseph Ungaro, asked Nixon about his taxes during his appearance at a newspaper editors’ conference in Florida. Nixon replied: “I welcome this kind of examination, because people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I am not a crook.”
Sound familiar????
Nothing would stick to Nixon because tax returns were never required before for Presidents/Nominees
Three months after White won his Pulitzer, Nixon resigned from office, not because of taxes but under threat of impeachment for the Watergate cover-up. Among other misdeeds, he was accused of misusing the F.B.I., the C.I.A. and the I.R.S. In addition to losing his presidency, Nixon lost nearly half his net worth paying what he owed to the I.R.S.
Until Donald Trump, every major-party presidential nominee since then had released his or her tax returns (except Gerald Ford, who released a summary in 1976). The simple reason is that, on at least one subject, Nixon got it right: The American people need to know if their president is a crook.
#AreYouACrook
BTW what has Hillary done????