No, a citizen exercises their own free speech rights when they do so. They do not waive their right to the IRS silence on the matter. That’s not how rights work.
Both the right to have it kept private, and the right to release it yourself, exist at the same time. The IRS has a duty to say nothing about it. I believe the Senate can compel them, that is the only loophole I am aware of.
But that does not change the fact that Trump has still not released ANYTHING. Just confirmed that’s his return.
Well my point still stands. There is likely a way for the IRS to do that. But there would need to be a point. Lacking a compelling reason to need confirmation of a returns veracity whatever that way is would never be activated.
The concept is lacking a why.
As for Trump releasing stuff. Looks like the coverage I saw was less than clear. The White House released some of the information from the 1040 in question before it was reported on Maddow. Not the 1040 itself. Which is extra special weaselly.
The fact that the White House released the tax returns once they found out Maddow had them is an obvious tell that it’s not illegal to publish/publicize someone’s tax returns-- by releasing them before she exposed them on TV they would have inoculated her against prosecution if it were illegal (because in court she could claim as much : “I was only reporting on what Trump had already revealed minutes earlier.”)
But even though it’s not illegal, I don’t see what benefit Trump thought he would get by releasing the tax returns before her report except to protect his ego, like he thought it would diminish her “scoop”, or by releasing the returns before her he was showing he had nothing to hide (despite refusing to release them until now.)
So a suggestion for Maddow: tweet that you have Trump’s 2015 tax returns even if you don’t, and see if that tricks him into revealing them on his own.
Not legally. No, there isn’t. They can’t release it to the public, They can’t say either way.
did you watch Maddow? That would be helpful both in terms of this story, and in general, unless you have a compelling reason to doubt her? (and that’s where this conversation started, do you have a compelling reason to not trust her as a journalist to do what journalists do, which is fact check this stuff before they report on it?)
Please note: the question marks denote questions, in case you missed those.
For this release, I would agree. And honestly, it doesn’t sound that out of the ordinary based on the little I read about it. He appears to have paid an effective tax rate of about 25%. That is lower than some upper middle class to very rich people, but it is not out of the ordinary, and it is not Mr Romney’s 9% or whatever it was. I guess calling out what he would have paid without the AMT is somewhat reasonable since he wants to eliminate it, but trying to phrase it like he actually paid 4% is disingenuous – in this case the AMT is doing exactly what it was supposed to – keeping the super wealthy from accruing enough tax deductions to reduce their effective rate to near zero.
However, there is a strong argument to be made that the deductions he took in 1995 as released by the washington post during the campaign were illegal. What he did is now certainly illegal, but it was the opinion of many tax experts at the time that it was already illegal. Trump and his accountant choose to do it anyway, and they got away with it, but not prosecuted != not illegal. I don’t think he should go to jail for it – the government declined to challenge it for a reason, but when judging whether someone running for office is honest, I would definitely count that as a negative, and it certainly makes me want to look more closely at the rest of his tax returns for other questionably legal deductions – presumably the IRS agrees and that is why he keeps getting audited.
[quote]Of course, by the time I finish this comment maybe something truly heinous will have been revealed, and I will regret saying these things.
[/quote]
Yeah, it happens every time I think I need to defend Trump against some allegations that I think are exaggerated or taken out of context. It turns out the the worst possible accusation was right.
This story is just a bunch of Twitter comments about how long it took Rachel Maddow to get to the big scoop.
Here’s a good representative sample of the many comments on that non-article. This one, is, by the way, chosen because of another storyline I am following over there, which is that Ryan is responsible for what they are calling “Ryancare” being a “fail,” which I find really an interesting setup that is happening to push Ryan down the stairs on the ACA reform.
I think you’ve missed something. I do not think the returns are fake. I do not think there is any need for anyone to confirm their authenticity. And I don’t think there is any reason to doubt them or the reporting on them. Nor do I think any of the questions raised here (by one guy who is not me) amount to anything that would necessitate finding or making a way to allow the IRS to confirm/deny.
As you might have surmised by the multiple points where I pointed to there being no reason for the IRS to comment. And no reason to doubt the returns.
As to lack of clarity on reporting. Multiple articles on the subject. Including this one make reference to the White House releasing the information Maddow has. Which without further explanation many people, myself included assumed meant they’d released the forms. On closer reading they seem to have released some of the numbers from those forms, not the forms themselves, in a statement. Minutes before Maddow aired.
You seem like your trying to undermine an argument I’m not making. I’ve been agreeing with you but coming at it from a different direction. Ultimately it doesn’t really matter if, how or under what circumstances the IRS could comment. Because there is no reason to ask them to.
“It’s entirely possible that Trump himself sent them to me,” he added, noting that “Donald has a long history of leaking material on himself when it’s in his interest.”
I buy that theory. Was the return address on the envelope “John Barron?”
I watch the 3-day running average of his approval rating on the gallup poll. Today was only the second time it has ever dropped below 40%. He’s probably running internal polling that are a day ahead of the public ones like gallup, so he knew he was taking a hit and had plenty of time to mail it out,
Last time, when it hit 38% was when he gave that crazy ass press conference where he said he wasn’t ranting and raving and then he went to florida and did a rally (and it immediately spiked back up).
Now, it seems like he’s always doing crazy shit independent of his approval ratings, so maybe I’m just seeing something that isn’t really there. But the release of a relatively positive tax return sounds like just the recipe to goose his base by reminding them what a successful business man he surely is.
Someone in Xeni’s thread on the same thing posted a YouTube replay. In the video, they say that they showed these to the WH for comment, so that’s how they knew what Maddow had. The reporter who got the taxes also says that it’s likely Trump slipped them to him, because he’s done that in the past with other information.
You can fill out a form 8821 authorizing the IRS to release a copy of your tax returns to a designated entity. This is what you do when you apply for a mortgage so that the bank can get an official transcript of your taxes (rather than relying on the copy you provide, which might be fradulent). And there are some other situations where they might legally release information to other parties, but there is no way that I as a private citizen can legally take a tentative transcript and have the IRS validate its authenticity without the explicit direct approval of the person.
i’m not undermining anything, you’ve made false statements, and then calimed to have seen evidence you;re not sharing. Multiple repotrs? Lets see two links that say Trump released anything aother than “some information” to anyone today. Who did he release returns to? How’s that? Put up or shut up.
Ha! If you want cynical, ask me about why no one has standing with the IRS and Tax Courts to challenge the secret 1993 IRS agreement with Scientology, except people who want the same deal, which will be denied because it’s unconstitutional. It was almost enough to make a panel of judges cry in one of the Sklar cases.
You don’t know me, so fair enough, but when I ask a question, it’s usually because I really do want to know the answer. I know how to Google, Guidestar and ERI are old friends and OpenCorporate is a new one, I’m a frequent flyer at the California Secretary of State corporations site and GovTrack. For everything else, I’ve got my little list. I research stuff. I have a catch-all journalist category on my site, but for the real journalists, my fingers know their names.
Am I misinformed? Sure, that could happen. It’s happened before and it’ll probably happen again. Will I correct myself when it happens? I hope.
I definitely have a bad habit of jumping off on a tangent, which seems perfectly obvious to me, without leaving breadcrumbs for other people to follow. I’m sorry.
Jesus nice stealth edit there. Re-read what I wrote. I caught multiple headlines stating Trump had released information to beat Maddow to the punch. I misinterpreted that and so did many others (scroll through this thread) to mean he released the actual pages. He didn’t. He released some numbers. The very article you are commenting on contains the information in question.
So what am I supposed to put up or shut up? What false claim do I need to provide proof of? That I misinterpreted a headline? That a lot of the articles out there used headlines that didn’t specify what was released further than “information”?
How about this you prove to me the White House didn’t release anything at all. Prove to me reality is not real. Provide me with objective facts that prove you are hungry at this moment. Put up or doughnut.
