Tag Archives: tax returns

Tax matters become our business

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You’re running for president of the United States.

It’s a grueling event. It has required candidates to do things they dislike doing, but they do them anyway.

One of those things is to reveal to the public they intend to govern how much they pay in taxes to the federal government. Presidential candidates have been doing it since 1976. It’s not required by law; candidates just do it. Some do so more willingly than others.

So, when a media representative asks the candidate about his or her tax rate, how much they pay in taxes, how is the candidate supposed to respond?

Donald J. Trump got that question this morning from George Stephanopoulos on ABC-TV’s “Good Morning America.” Trump’s response? “It’s none of your business.”

Well, actually it is.

The man now presumed to be the Republican Party’s next presidential nominee is throwing out tax plans left and right. He’s back-tracking, switching his views, telling us what he intends to do — before he changes his mind — about how much money he wants the rest of us to pay in taxes.

Trump has been less-than-forthcoming on his tax returns. He won’t release them for public review, contending that the Internal Revenue Service is in the midst of an audit. IRS officials respond with, “So what?” He still can release the returns.

Trump won’t do it.

Then he tells a network news anchor that the information is “none of your business.”

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/05/13/donald-trump-on-his-tax-rate-its-none-of-your-business/?_r=0

It is absolutely our business to know how much a man who wants to be president pays in taxes to the government — our government, the one financed by American taxpayers.

Of course, the president doesn’t set tax policy by himself — or herself. Tax legislation originates in the House of Representatives. As the saying goes, “The president proposes, Congress disposes.”

Still, if a president is going to propose tax policy to Congress — which might then become law that has a direct impact on every American’s household income — then the public has a right to know whether the presidential candidate is paying his or her fair share.

Who determines what is fair? We do.

 

Release the tax returns already!

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Here’s how you give birth to rumor.

You refuse to do something that others in your position have done for decades. You then offer lame excuses for the refusal, which then start to breed gossip around the country about the alleged real reasons for the refusal.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump is refusing to release his tax returns. He says the Internal Revenue Service is in the midst of an audit; the IRS responds that an audit does not preclude someone from releasing the returns.

Other candidates for the presidency have routinely released their returns for public review. It’s part of the examination process to which the public is entitled as they consider who should become the nation’s head of state and government and commander in chief.

Trump should release the returns. Now.

I am not going to weigh in on what’s been said by those who think Trump might be hiding something. Such allegations have come from, say, 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

This might seem like a diversion. It really isn’t.

The refusal to comply what’s been customary among presidential candidates speaks to the character of the candidate.

Recall that Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders balked initially at releasing his returns, and he faced questions from an inquiring public. He said his wife prepared them and he described the findings as “boring.” He finally did.

Trump has been bellowing for decades about his immense wealth. He’s boasted about what a “world-class businessman” he’s been.

Well, OK. Let’s open up the books and let the public see for itself.

The world is chock full of equally world-class certified public accountants and tax lawyers who can parse the details for us.

 

 

 

C’mon, Bernie; show us your tax returns

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Sen. Bernie Sanders tries to make a lot of hay about his authenticity, that he’s just one of us, that he’s campaigning for the little guy.

I get his message as he battles Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.

But this morning on CNN, the distinguished gentleman from Vermont fluffed a direct question from “State of the Union” host Jake Tapper: Why won’t you release your tax returns, as Secretary Clinton has done for the past eight years?

His answer? “My wife does our tax returns and I’ve been a little busy.”

OK, senator. Enough already.

Americans heard some kind of song-and-dance from Republican frontrunner Donald J. Trump, who said he couldn’t release his returns because he was being audited for the past 12 consecutive years. That, too, is a stretch.

However, these returns have become part of the effort to improve transparency among all the candidates running for president.

It seems to many of us that it’s especially critical to see the tax returns from candidates who keep purporting to be champions for “wage equality” and who keep blasting the “top 1 percent” of income-earners for getting rich while the rest of us are struggling to make ends meet.

Mrs. Sanders does his tax returns? They’ve been “busy”?

Get real, senator. If your returns are straightforward and uncomplicated as your campaign message would seem to imply, then releasing the records wouldn’t be that big a deal.

This, sir, simply goes with the territory. Candidates who ask voters to entrust them with governing the world’s richest and most powerful nation should expect demands to see if they, too, are living up to the high-minded rhetoric they espouse on the campaign trail.