In a memorable debate moment during his first campaign for president, Donald Trump was accused by Hillary Clinton of paying “zero” federal income taxes. Clinton referenced the very few publicly available records of Trump’s tax history (scant excepting some paperwork involving a New Jersey casino application) and revealed that the billionaire real estate developer and TV personality hadn’t paid a nickel into America’s coffers.
Damning stuff, right? Clinton evidently thought she had her opponent pinned in a difficult, shameful position — after all, everybody working a job pays taxes. Yet Trump wriggled out of the hold. Never denying that he didn’t pay, instead Trump said about not paying: “That makes me smart.”
Clinton kept trying to hold Trump to an honorable standard, naming all the things — like the national defense — that Trump hadn’t contributed to.
But an honorable standard was never something Trump had promised voters in the first place — and plenty of them forgave him both his refusal to share his tax info and his boast that contributing “zero” to the country he hoped to run was a sign of rare intelligence, not grift.
Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon watched Trump’s tax transparency shenanigans with alarm and distress. Trump sometimes said he couldn’t reveal the tax documents because he was being audited, sometimes he said he just didn’t agree with the requirement to reveal — which was voluntary, of course.
Revealing one’s tax history had become standard practice among those running for president, but it was never codified by law that a candidate had an obligation to reveal tax returns.
Wyden thinks it should be — and with Trump again the leading GOP candidate, Wyden again wants to make tax transparency the law, not a suggestion. He tried in 2016 and he is trying again now.
“Donald Trump violated decades of precedent set by presidential candidates before him that released their tax returns,” Wyden writes. “Tax cheats shouldn’t get to be president, and I just reintroduced my Presidential Tax Transparency Act to keep that a reality.”
Donald Trump violated decades of precedent set by presidential candidates before him that released their tax returns. Tax cheats shouldn’t get to be president, and I just reintroduced my Presidential Tax Transparency Act to keep that a reality. https://t.co/9ibhlxRvLj
— Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) April 26, 2023
Calling the bill’s premise “inarguable,” Wyden said that “The pro-transparency, good-government tradition of candidates releasing tax returns stood for decades until Donald Trump broke it in 2016 to hide his shady business practices.”
You can read the Presidential Audit and Tax Transparency Act at the Senate Finance Committee website — Wyden chairs the committee.
