Two Supreme Court cases are looking at whether financial institutions can be subpoenaed for Trump’s tax filings.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule on two cases regarding access to President Donald Trump’s tax filings soon. At the heart of the cases: Can House committees and a New York grand jury subpoena financial institutions for Trump’s personal and business tax filings?
If the Supreme Court rules against Trump, it opens the possibility that the public could eventually see his personal tax return and business records, though experts say it would be unlikely to happen quickly. Here’s why people want to see Trump’s tax returns and what they may reveal about the president.
Since Richard Nixon, presidents have shared their tax returns in some way or another with the public. Nixon perhaps explained why best: “I welcome this kind of examination because people have got to know whether or not their president’s a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.”
But Nixon had not shared his tax returns entirely willingly. During the Watergate scandal, an IRS employee leaked information from Nixon’s tax returns that suggested that the president had underpaid his taxes for two years. As reporters put pressure on Nixon to disclose his returns, he finally shared them, confirming that he had wrongly claimed a deduction and woefully underpaid his taxes. Nixon, who was under audit at the time, was sent a tax bill of about $470,000 plus interest to pay in back taxes from the IRS.
Nixon’s release of his federal returns set a precedent. While no law requires presidential candidates (or the president for that matter) to share his or her tax returns, it was understood among future candidates: The office of the presidency requires a certain amount of transparency, and voters have a right to know if their president pays his or her fair share of taxes and, yes, “whether or not their president’s a crook.
