After the Supreme Court last week cleared the way for the release of documents he had long fought to keep secret, a House committee has now been given access to six years’ worth of former President Donald J. Trump’s tax returns.
According to Lily Adams, a spokesman for the Treasury Department, “Treasury has complied with last week’s court judgment.”
The action put an end to a nearly four-year quest for the returns by Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee. Mr. Trump had refused to make them public, going against contemporary norms for major presidential candidates and incumbent presidents.
Representative Richard E. Neal, a Democrat from Massachusetts who chairs the committee, sought the returns; a representative for him declined to comment. Requests for a response from Mr. Trump’s attorneys went unanswered.
Uncertainty was regarding whether the Internal Revenue Service, a division of the Treasury Department, had physically delivered the returns to Capitol Hill, made them available for Mr. Neal to study, or taken any other action to provide them to the committee.
Ms. Adams supplied no additional information, merely stating that the documents were delivered “according with the guidelines of 6103,” referring to the law that permits the Ways and Means Committee chairman to request the returns.
Details regarding any requested returns that may be connected to a specific taxpayer at this time must be treated confidentially per Section 6103. However, the same statute also permits the committee to later make the returns public by publishing them in the Congressional Record. Mr. Neal hasn’t stated if he will or won’t.
A month before Republicans take over the House, the action was taken. The new majority would have likely dismissed the request if the Supreme Court had sided with Mr. Trump.
Given that information regarding Mr. Trump’s finances has already been made public through other channels in the intervening years, it is unclear whether the tax returns will contain any significant new disclosures.
