(FreedomBeacon.com)- According to the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives on Tuesday, former president Donald Trump’s tax returns may be made public in the coming days.
The date that Trump’s tax information will be made public is still unknown.
But according to a 29-page summary report released by the Ways and Means Committee, the IRS appears to have delayed performing a required audit of Trump’s tax returns.
Since 1977, the IRS has been required to audit the taxes of a president in office. However, the committee claimed on Tuesday that the IRS had begun an audit of Trump’s taxes on the same day Chairman Richard Neal wrote to the IRS requesting Trump’s returns in 2019.
Democratic Representative Don Beyer, a committee member, tweeted, “On April 3, 2019, @WaysMeansCmte Chairman Richard Neal wrote the IRS to request Trump’s tax returns as part of our Committee’s oversight of the IRS’ mandatory audit of presidential tax returns.”
Beyer said that on the same day, the IRS launched its first audit of Donald Trump’s tax returns. Nothing indicates that the IRS decision was influenced by Trump or members of his administration.
The mandatory audit of the president’s taxes was described as “dormant, at best” in the House Ways and Means Committee’s report.
The report recommended a statutory requirement for the mandatory examination of the President with disclosure of “certain audit information and related returns in a timely manner.”
The committee said this statutory requirement would ensure the integrity of the IRS, allow IRS personnel tthoroughlyly audit all issues, and restore confidence in the Federal tax system.
Immediately following a party-line vote of 24-16 by the committee to release six years’ worth of Trump’s tax returns, the report was released.
When he ran for president in 2016, former President Trump defied decades of tradition by refusing to release his tax returns publicly. He frequently claimed he couldn’t do so because he was the subject of an audit.
However, when the IRS is auditing tax returns, there is no legal prohibition against making them publicly available.
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung claimed that the “unprecedented leak by lame-duck Democrats is proof they are playing a political game they are losing.”
