House committee to hold meeting on Trump tax returns

Comes weeks before the GOP takes over the House of Representatives

The House Ways & Means will convene on Tuesday to discuss former president Donald Trump’s tax returns just days before the current Congress ends and Republicans take control, CNN reported.

Democrats currently have the majority in the House of Representatives, meaning they control all committees, including the all-important Ways & Means Committee, which deals with tax policy. It is so far unclear what the committee will do with the tax returns it received but the committe would likely vote on what action it would take on the tax returns.

Mr Trump refused to disclose his tax returns both times he ran for president under the premise that he was being audited by the IRS. Democrats won a years-long court battle to obtain the tax returns earlier this year. But the Supreme Court rejected his request to shield the committee from obtaining his returns last month.

None of the justices whom Mr Trump nominated during his presidency made any noted dissents in the ruling. Committee Chairman Richard Neal did not just request Mr Trump’s tax personal tax returns from 2013 to 2018 but also his business entities and administrative files that accompanied them.

Republicans won control of the House in last month’s election, meaning they have less time to actually discuss the former president’s tax returns, meaning that Democrats are running out of time to act on the tax returns. They have criticised the Democrats’ pursuit of Mr Trump’s taxes as a political investigation.

But Democrats have argued that they needed to know how the IRS’s automatic audit of Mr Trump’s taxes was working and to determine if new legislation was needed to protect his returns.