The relevant law (IRC 6103) has a number of provisions that allow various parties access to tax returns of others under certain circumstances. Section (f) provides that the Secretary of the Treasury shall provide tax returns to Congressional committees upon a request from the Chair of the committee. Interestingly the law is different for the House Ways and Means Committee (and Senate Finance Committee) than other Committees. Without going into boring detail, those Committees could make the requested returns part of the public record, whereas any other Committees cannot legally do so (assuming Trump does not consent to them being made public). That is why the charge is being led by Neal (Chairman of Ways and Means).srothstein wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 3:52 pmIt has recently been customary for candidates to make their returns public, though I have no idea why or what the benefit is. There is no law requiring it of any candidate.
There is a law making all tax returns to IRS confidential. Looking at IRS records, including returns, without authorization is a crime. The flaw is that the law was written by congress and they left a loophole in the law. It allows the committee to subpoena any tax records necessary so they can check if the IRS is performing its functions properly. It is part of the oversight function of congress. The committee making the request is claiming this law allows it.
As I understand it, the IRS has refused to comply because their interpretation of the law is slightly more restrictive. They believe there has to be some question of misbehavior on the IRS' part, not on the part of the taxpayer.
Because the law states that the Secretary "shall" provide the returns upon the request, there really isn't much room for discretion/interpretation. Treasury has not taken an official position, but has responded that they are considering the request. The position that they might take is that the Ways and Means Committee has no official business affected by the returns, and thus the request is not valid. That strikes me as an uphill battle - it would be fairly easy to come up with some form of business to make a colorable claim (Neal has already stated the request is for oversight of the presidential audit program run by the IRS).
Ultimately, if Treasury chooses to fight the request, my view is that they lose in the courts. The law is pretty clear that there is authority to request the returns. However, the game might be to drag it out - it probably would not be too challenging to extend the fight out past the 2020 election.
The other side of this is that I don't know why either side particularly cares. Tax returns, even those as complex as Trump's are likely to be, generally do not contain a whole lot of interesting information that would be useful to the public. Even if the Democrats are able to obtain the returns, they probably shouldn't count on any smoking guns.