Tag: Tax Returns

Former IRS Contractor Charles Littlejohn Sentenced to 5 Years for Releasing Trump Tax Records

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Former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn was sentenced to five years in prison on Monday after leaking former President Donald Trump’s tax records, according to NBC News.

Littlejohn, 38, was charged in September 2023 with one count of disclosing information from a tax return for a government official, and he pleaded guilty in October to leaking 10 years of Trump’s tax records to The New York Times. U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes sentenced Littlejohn to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine, according to NBC News.

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Commentary: Be Very Skeptical About Sen. Warren Throwing More Money at the IRS

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Elizabeth Warren

Closing the “tax gap,” or revenue owed to the federal government that goes uncollected, has long been a favorite deus ex machina for lawmakers who want more revenue without having to raise rates. But Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Chuck Rettig really put dollar signs in lawmakers’ eyes when he claimed the tax gap could be as large as $1 trillion. Always eager to appear knowledgeable on policy issues, Sen. Elizabeth Warren is putting forward a plan to collect extra revenue that only gets worse the deeper you dig into it.

First and foremost, it’s important to understand how far off on an island Rettig is with his estimate. The IRS’s last official estimate of the size of the tax gap placed it at a far, far lower $381 billion. Even considering that this estimate may not have factored in underpayment from cryptocurrencies, offshore holdings, and pass-through businesses, the tax gap still remains far closer to $500 billion than to $1 trillion.

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Tax, Legal Experts Agree Leaker of Trump’s Tax Returns Could Face Prison Time

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Tax and legal experts say the leaker or leakers who took President Trump’s personal tax returns and gave them to The New York Times, committed a felony punishable by prison.

Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia who has advised Trump on some legal matters, told Just the News that the leaking was “definitely” a crime that could be liable for both criminal and civil legal actions.

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The New York Times Claims It Has Obtained President Trump’s Tax Returns, Trump Organization Attorney Says ‘The Facts Appear to be Inaccurate’

Christina Botteri

The New York Times published a lengthy report over the weekend based, they say, on tax documents they obtained from “sources.”

Breitbart News reports that The Times “found no evidence of any links to Russia,” as has been consistently claimed by multiple news outlets over the course of the Trump’s term in office. However, they add that the documents do show the extent of the entrepreneur’s Russia connections are limited to the 2001 Miss Universe pageant held in Moscow – which were “the most profitable Miss Universe during Mr. Trump’s time as co-owner, and that it generated a personal payday of $2.3 million.”

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New York Lawmakers Pass Bill That Would Allow Congress Access to Trump’s Tax Returns in the State

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by Neetu Chandak   The New York state Assembly passed a bill Wednesday to allow Congress to obtain information on state tax returns for elected officials, which would include President Donald Trump’s returns. The bill passed 84-53 and would allow the New York Department of Taxation and Finance commissioner to release any state tax returns about those in federal, state and local elected or other upper-level public offices to leaders of congressional tax-writing committees, NBC News reported Wednesday. It would apply to personal and business income taxes filed in the state, according to The Associated Press. The House Ways and Means chairman, Massachusetts Rep. Richard Neal, wants to obtain six years of Trump’s personal and business tax returns. An earlier version of the New York bill that passed through the state Senate in early May would allow Congress to take a look at “any” New Yorker’s state tax returns, NBC reported. This provision, however, has been changed after some believed such a ruling would go too far. New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo will need to sign the legislation to make it official, but it is unclear whether he will do so. A spokesman for Cuomo said the governor supports…

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Trumps Sue Banks to Keep Them from Complying with Congressional Subpoenas

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by Chuck Ross   President Donald Trump, his three oldest children, and their companies sued Monday to prevent their two banks from complying with congressional subpoenas for personal and business financial records. The Trump lawyers argued in the lawsuit that the subpoenas, which were issued to Deutsche Bank and Capital One on April 15, “have no legitimate or lawful purpose.” “The subpoenas were issued to harass President Donald J. Trump, to rummage through every aspect of his personal finances, his businesses, and the private information of the President and his family, and to ferret about for any material that might be used to cause him political damage,” reads the lawsuit, which was filed in the Southern District of New York. “No grounds exist to establish any purpose other than a political one.” The House Intelligence and House Financial Services committees issued the subpoenas, which seek a variety of financial records from the president, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, several of their companies, and a joint trust. House Democrats have ramped up their campaign to obtain Trump’s financial records in recent weeks. On April 3, Massachusetts Rep. Richard Neal, the Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee,…

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Commentary: Check Your Tax Return Again, You Probably Paid Less This Year Under the Trump Tax Cuts

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by Robert Romano   Only 40 percent of respondents in a recent New York Times-SurveyMonkey online poll thought they had received tax cuts under the 2017 tax cut legislation that was signed into law by President Donald Trump. A separate NBC-Wall Street Journal poll found 28 percent believe they will pay more in taxes. There’s just one problem. Among those who pay taxes, in 2018, 80 percent of all taxpayers got a tax cut under the bill, 5 percent paid more and 15 percent paid about the same, according to an analysis of the law by the Tax Policy Center. So, check your tax return again. Most probably, you paid less in taxes than last year. Doubling the standard deduction and lowering the rates overall captured most taxpayers, and more than offset restrictions to the mortgage interest and state and local tax deductions. Even the New York Times’ Ben Casselman and Jim Tankersley said that the reason for the wide disparity was because opponents of the law had so effectively, falsely demonized it. Per Casselman and Tankersley, “the gap between perception and reality on the tax cuts appears to flow from a sustained — and misleading — effort by liberal…

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Grassley Explains Why He Doesn’t Want To See Trump’s Tax Returns

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by Nick Givas   Sen. Chuck Grassley explained why he wasn’t interested in seeing President Donald Trump’s personal tax returns, on “Fox & Friends” Monday. “Listen, you’re asking me as chairman of the Finance Committee, we would have an opportunity to see [Trump’s tax returns] too. I don’t want to see them,” he said. “I am not going to request them and you’re asking me in regard to Trump. I want to tell you that I look at this not from the point of view of Trump, but what is legitimate for Congress to do looking at people’s tax returns,” the Iowa Republican continued. “It’s not to know who the tax returns are. It’s supposed to serve a legislative purpose.” Grassely also said there should be an expectation of privacy with regard to personal tax information and expressed concerns about weaponizing the IRS to neutralize political enemies. “In fact the privacy of your tax returns are guaranteed by Section 6103,” he continued. “We want to make sure that what [former President Lyndon B. Johnson] did, what [former President Richard] Nixon did or what [former President Barack] Obama did — going after conservative organizations, that the IRS is not used for political purposes. But if you…

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Mick Mulvaney: Democrats Will ‘Never’ See President Trump’s Tax Returns

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by Henry Rogers   Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said Democrats in Congress will “never” succeed in obtaining President Donald Trump’s tax returns. Mulvaney mentioned in an interview with “Fox News Sunday” how Democrats are demanding the IRS to hand over Trump’s tax returns. “Democrats are demanding that the IRS turn over the documents. That is not going to happen, and they know it. This is a political stunt,” Mulvaney said. House Democrats said in early March they will be demanding Trump to release his tax returns, ramping up their investigations into the president. “We’re almost ready to go,” Democratic New Jersey Rep. Bill Pascrell told Politico in March when asked about Trump’s tax returns. Democrats have been pushing for the release of Trump’s tax returns since he announced his candidacy for president. This all comes as House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat, requested a number of documents from the White House and is sending letters seeking information from people and organizations close to Trump. – – – Henry Rogers is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation. Follow Henry Rodgers On Twitter.                         Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation…

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Sen. Amy Klobuchar Latest 2020 Hopeful to Release Taxes

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Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar released 12 years of tax returns Monday, saying “transparency and accountability are fundamental to good governance.” The Minnesota senator was the latest 2020 contender to make her returns public. The tax returns date back to 2006, when she first became a candidate for federal office. The documents show Klobuchar and her husband, attorney and law school professor John Bessler, paid $62,787 in federal taxes on an adjusted gross income of $292,306 in 2017. Democrats have criticized President Donald Trump for refusing to disclose his tax returns. His financial dealings also have been the subject of investigations. Among the Democratic presidential hopefuls who’ve already released their returns are Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee. Other candidates have said they plan to release their returns but have yet to do so. Klobuchar’s returns show how the couple’s income has grown since she was first elected to the Senate in 2006. At that time, Klobuchar was the lead prosecutor in Hennepin County, Minnesota’s largest county, and Bessler was an attorney at a Minneapolis law firm. That year they reported $215,326 in adjusted gross income and paid $41,984 in federal taxes.…

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