Trump's taxes must be released before tax reform: Painter and Eisen

Many of us will fork over up to a third of our income to pay federal taxes this year and as much as half of our income in federal, state and local taxes combined.

We only ask a few things in return.

First, a government that spends our money wisely and does not succumb to government contractors and others who use campaign contributions and lobbyists to get a portion of our money that they should not have. Second, a government that is responsive to the interests of the American people rather than to special interests, including companies in which public officials have investments or other relationships. Third, a government that is transparent and open so we know what the government is doing and what financial and other conflicts of interests government officials might have.

The Trump administration and Congress are falling short in all three areas.

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First, wasteful spending by big government continues, with enormous proposed increases in defense spending sure to benefit defense contractors whether or not the spending improves our national security. The military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned against in 1961 now has more influence than ever, thanks to campaign money. Then there is the “big, beautiful wall” that will cost billions of dollars, that we are told Mexico will pay for, but that we know full well will be our financial responsibility.

Second, conflicts of interest are worse than ever under Trump. The president continues to receive payments and benefits from foreign governments (emoluments) in violation of the Constitution, and Congress has done nothing to stop him. Trump also says “the president can't have a conflict of interest,” a statement that's simply not true. Meanwhile, the cesspool of campaign finance bubbles unabated with the longtime general in the war against campaign-finance reform, Don McGahn, having been installed as White House counsel.

Third, there is no transparency, starting at the top. For the first time in recent memory, the president has refused to release his tax returns. We know from a document sent to The New York Times that in 1995, he had a $916 million tax loss carry forward from real estate that would have allowed him to avoid paying any tax for years. We know from a leaked 2005 return that he would have paid very little of his income in tax that year but for the alternative minimum tax that he wants to abolish. And that’s it.

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At a minimum, before this administration even thinks of proposing any changes to the tax code, we should see what tax code provisions the president himself has been and is taking advantage of, and how much tax he has paid in the past few years. Otherwise, we are bound to end up with a deal where the rest of us pay yet more tax while he, and probably his business partners and political allies, pay less.

The “art of the deal” for him, perhaps, but for the rest of us it’s the art of the steal.

We should not have to pay taxes for a government that ignores our interests and prioritizes instead the interests of our political leaders and the elites who support them. Unless things change soon, the American people could confront Trump with another tea party in which they toss his ideas about "tax reform" and the rest of his agenda right into the harbor.

Richard Painter, a speaker at the Tax March this weekend in St. Paul, is vice chair of CREW and a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, and was the chief White House ethics lawyer from 2005 to 2007. Norman Eisen, chair of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, was the chief White House ethics lawyer from 2009 to 2011 and ambassador to the Czech Republic from 2011 to 2014. Follow them on Twitter @RWPUSA and @NormEisen.

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