Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi reacted to the report revealed by the Ways & Means Committee on the details of Donald Trump’s tax returns of six years when he was in the chair. The Democratic-led committee on Tuesday voted to make portions of the former President’s tax returns public.
The former US President reported to the IRS that he profited hundreds of millions of dollars in a year and then faced chronic losses, which led to his paying no income tax. Here are further details on the latest Nancy Pelosi news.
Tweets from Pelosi
Pelosi wrote in her tweet that there is an immense need for the legislation to ensure the public can have faith in transparency in auditing the tax returns of a sitting president.
The @WaysMeansCmte’s solemn oversight work has revealed the urgent need for legislation to ensure the public can trust in real accountability and transparency during the audit of a sitting president’s tax returns – not only in the case of President Trump, but for any president.
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) December 21, 2022
She also wrote that US citizens have all the right to know that nobody is bigger than the law. She also praised chairman Richard Neal for bringing “integrity to the committee’s vital oversight and legislative responsibilities.”
The American people deserve to know without question that no one is above the law.
From Day One, @RepRichardNeal has brought immense integrity to the committee’s vital oversight and legislative responsibilities.
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) December 21, 2022
In the first tweet of the series, Pelosi said that it has now become essential, after the revelation of the report by the House committee, to take necessary steps so that the public trust in the legislature remains intact.
The @WaysMeansCmte’s report makes clear the legislative steps that must now be taken to guard the public trust, and we will move swiftly to advance Chairman Neal’s legislation requiring the IRS to conduct an annual audit of the President’s finances. https://t.co/5lMLKjK8GJ
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) December 21, 2022
Ways & Means Committee Reports
The committee released two reports on Tuesday night which contain a summation of the findings, but the raw Trump tax returns are yet to be made public. The Chairman of the Committee said it would be brought to the public in a few days.
The reports from the committee members and the Joint Committee on Taxation said that IRS didn’t mandatorily hold the audit program of Trump’s taxes in the first two years of his service in the White House.
The reports indicated that only the 2016 income tax return was audited mandatorily, but the audits of 2018-2020 weren’t done correctly.
In his first three years of holding the chair, Trump paid his federal income taxes of $1.1 million but paid no tax in 2020 as his losses mounted, revealing the tax data released by the House panel.
The data focuses on the details of Trump’s tax returns from 2015 up to the completion of his full term as US president and shows that during his initial days in the White House, Trump suffered huge business losses, like most of the time in his career. He paid almost no income taxes then, but in 2018 he reported his adjusted gross income to be $24.3 million, which made him pay a little over $1 million as income tax.
WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE VOTES TO RELEASE INVESTIGATION OF THE IRS’S MANDATORY AUDIT PROGRAM UNDER THE PRIOR ADMINISTRATION https://t.co/i8iuviZaYe
— Ways & Means Committee (@WaysMeansCmte) December 21, 2022
Trump’s Reports on his Incomes
The report on the tax returns further shows that Trump reported $4.4 million as his income and paid $133,445 as tax in the following years.
In 2020, when the USA, along with the whole world, got hit by the pandemic, the then-president reported that he had lost $4.8 million and paid no income tax.
Vote to Release Trump’s Tax Records
The Ways & Means Committee held a vote on Tuesday along party lines, and the result was 24-16. Richard Neal, the chairman of the committee, called for legislation to require annual audits of taxes of the President. Nancy Pelosi urged to take the same quickly as the Republicans are supposed to hold the chamber from next month.
