I don’t know what the House Ways and Means Committee was trying to accomplish by releasing former President Donald Trump’s tax returns, but it did make me wish I had Trump’s accountants working for me.
Honestly, who wants to pay taxes? Nobody. How many of us would like to avoid paying taxes altogether? Everybody. And to do it legally — wow! Am I missing something here? I can see no wrongdoing by Trump. Even an IRS audit, which was not conducted on Trump while he was president, would not have revealed wrongdoing. It may, however, have revealed how “flexible” the Internal Revenue Code is — but that’s another story. You can’t put “features” in a law and then punish people for using those features, even for purposes other than those “originally intended.” If that was the case, the IRS would spend 95% of its time prosecuting people, including many of the people who wrote the law.
But this isn’t about the law. This is about politics and the struggle for power. Will this result in reforms and revisions to the Internal Revenue Code? Not likely. Trump isn’t the only one who benefits from its “flexibility.” I would like to see the tax returns of Nancy Pelosi and all of the Bidens. That, I think, would provide for an equally interesting expose.
Arthur Saginian
Santa Clarita
