The former president of the United States Donald Trump’s tax returns will now be made available to a Democratic-led House committee after the Supreme Court on Tuesday gave the IRS permission to do so.
Trump, who has fought for years to prevent the release of his tax returns and is currently facing numerous investigations, has suffered a significant setback as a result of the court’s decision.
Trump’s legal representatives has consistently fought to keep his tax returns private, and after losing in a lower court, he appealed to the Supreme Court, which is made up of three of his nominees. On November 1, the subpoena had been temporarily suspended by Chief Justice John Roberts, who oversees the lower court that made the decision in the Trump case. This was probably done to give the justices more time to think about the matter.
Massachusetts Democrat Richard Neal, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, first asked the IRS for the tax returns in 2019, but the IRS under the Trump administration initially resisted providing them. The case did not advance quickly until 2021, when the Biden administration changed the Justice Department’s legal position and determined that the IRS had a duty to abide by the committee’s request.
Late last year, a judge appointed by Trump made a decision that favored the House. The US DC Circuit Court of Appeals refused to overturn that decision, and most recently, the full appeals court declined to take the case. The court rejected Trump’s argument that the stated purpose was merely a pretext to conceal a political calculation and held that the request for the documents served a legitimate legislative purpose to examine tax laws as they apply to a sitting president.