Featured Trump Will Not be Releasing Taxes

You speak from ignorance as you would in know that your statement is not true if you had clicked on the link and gone through the entire list. I decided I did not want to post 5 or 6 postings to cover the entire list.

 

Not true.

 

LAW-NEWZ - LINK:

"Legal Experts Side With Trump; It Would Be Crazy to Release His Taxes During Audit:

"Donald Trump is not backing down. He is not releasing his taxes until after he says a federal audit is complete. He was pushed on the topic again Friday morning on Good Morning America.

“Almost every lawyer will tell you the same thing, when you are under audit, you finish the audit before you release,” he said."
...
"on this one, we have to say it is true. Tax attorneys who spoke with LawNewz.com said they would advise their clients not to release taxes in the midst of an audit."

"I advise my clients (hundreds over the years who actually experience an IRS inquiry) to NEVER release their tax returns while an audit is going on. I am certain Mr. Trump’s lawyers, very capable and well-respected in this field, have advised him not to disclose his tax returns during the audit. There are many reasons for this."

 

Are all his returns under audit?

Do we know for sure than any are actually under audit?

Regardless, it is bad politics to withhold the returns.

From: http://www.forbes.com/sites/berniek...disclosure-controversy-part-one/#3ff05ea64d93

Donald Trump has said that the reason that he has not released his tax returns is that his returns are being audited. The fact that his tax returns are under audit in no way prevents him from disclosing them. He has not stated which years’ tax returns are under audit. Normally tax returns are selected for audit between one and two years after they are filed. Trump tweeted a photo of him signing his 2014 form 1040 on October 15, 2015. This means that the 2014 tax return would not normally have been selected for audit until at least October of this year. However, when a taxpayer is under examination for a prior year, the auditor may request to see the current year form 1040 and add that to the list of returns being examined.

Tax practitioners disagree whether there is a risk of additional tax being imposed on Mr. Trump due to public disclosure of the information contained in his tax returns under audit. Some experts say that this would expose his tax return to greater scrutiny by allowing every tax professional in the country to suggest ways that Trump’s returns could be attacked. Others say the IRS already knows what they want to audit and are unlikely to be swayed by suggestions from the public. One may argue that if you want to run for president, you should not be concerned with how the disclosure of your tax return might affect your tax audit. That is the price you must pay to be transparent to the voting public. President Nixon disclosed his tax returns while under IRS audit. There was no suggestion that his disclosure had an impact on the audit.

 

LINK Law Newz:

"First of all, and most importantly, the IRS is not allowed to show your client’s tax returns to anyone else. Such returns are protected by the privacy laws of section 6103 of Title 26 of the Code. The only way they could do so if your client had a lawyer dumb enough to let you disclose those records publicly. The IRS could then misuse this otherwise private information to make the audit process more difficult at many levels, and could cause problems for other entirely innocent businesses you do business with."

"Second, releasing the returns during an audit could cause anyone who has a grievance with you to misuse the released information, and try to intervene in the audit process, for their own personal, financial or political gain."

"Third, tax returns usually reveal business strategies that may need revision during the audit process, for which untimely disclosure could unduly hinder and harm, with third parties often the victim as much as the client.”

"Lots of transactions span several tax years so he is also right that one years return may be intertwined with another.”

 

But President Nixon was not a businessman, a developer, or a property manager. He didn't have 250 ongoing ventures.

 

Tax experts say "No". - "I advise my clients to NEVER release their tax RETURNS [as in plural] while an audit is going on."

 

So he is being audited.

That is fine, but we do know that the IRS has been used by this administration for political purposes. If I were Trump (or any other wealthy Republican) I would follow the advice of my tax attorney, not a retired IRS official. Or the Washington Post for that matter.