Democrats Ask Watchdog Group To Probe IRS For Failing To Audit Trump’s Taxes

Topline

Democrats who were on a House panel that released former President Donald Trump’s tax returns last year asked a government watchdog group Monday to investigate the Internal Revenue Service for its alleged failure to properly audit Trump—but the party has few mechanisms for advancing its probe into Trump’s taxes under the Republican-controlled House.

Key Facts

Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.)—along with 14 Democrats who sat on the House Ways and Means Committee during the previous session of Congress—asked the Government Accountability Office in a letter sent last week to investigate the IRS after the committee reported in December that the agency did not audit Trump during his first two years in office, defying mandatory presidential audit policy, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Forbes.

The Democrats asked the agency to examine why the IRS didn’t ask for more resources to audit Trump’s taxes, after the committee reported in December that a single IRS agent was assigned to the Trump audits, none of which were completed before he left office.

The committee also wants the Government Accountability Office to recommend possible legislation to strengthen the presidential audit process and IRS accountability.

The Government Accountability Office has no real enforcement ability, but instead serves as an objective information-gathering resource for Congress and its committees in its own investigations and helps lawmakers determine if any laws were broken.

The office determines which investigations it will take on, and prioritizes requests from Congress when they come from senior congressional leaders or committee heads or are mandated by statute, resolution or an official congressional report.

Key Background

The Ways and Means Committee released six years of Trump’s tax returns in December, months before Republicans took control of the House and its committees and would have likely blocked the years-long effort to shed light on Trump’s finances. Trump, who broke years of precedent when he refused to release the documents himself, lost a court battle to keep his tax records secret when the Supreme Court in November ordered the IRS to turn them over to the committee. The documents show Trump claimed losses in 2017 and 2020, allowing him to pay just $750 in taxes in those two years combined. He paid nearly $1 million in taxes in 2018 and $144,445 in 2019. In a report detailing its findings, the committee found the IRS first initiated an audit of Trump in 2019, on the same day the committee asked the agency to provide it with Trump’s tax returns as part of its probe into the IRS’ presidential auditing process.

Tangent

Republicans have waged their own battle against the IRS, which they accuse of overstepping its boundaries in taxing and auditing Americans. The first bill passed by the GOP-controlled House earlier this month rolled back nearly $80 billion in new IRS funding Republicans claimed would have added 87,000 new IRS agents (in reality, it would have funded the hiring of about 87,000 IRS employees—not just agents—over the next ten years, according to a 2021 estimate from the Treasury Department). The legislation is likely to fail in the Democrat-controlled Senate, however.

Further Reading

House Releases Trump’s Tax Returns—Here’s What We Know (Forbes)

This Is The Reason Trump Hid His Tax Returns For So Long (Forbes)

Checks & Imbalances: Inside Trump’s Tax Returns (Forbes)

Trump Paid $0 In Taxes In 2020—Here’s What To Know About His Tax Returns (Forbes)