Ahead of Finance Committee Markup on Measures to Protect Taxpayers and Improve Annual Tax Filing, Ranking Member and Every Finance Democrat Reveal Amendment to Address Trump’s Sweetheart, Self-Dealing Tax Audit Immunity Settlement
Washington, D.C. – Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., led every Senate Democrat on the Finance Committee in the introduction of an amendment to the Taxpayer Assistance and Service Act that would end Trump’s tax audit immunity settlement. The amendment will receive a vote in the committee’s Thursday morning markup of policies to improve taxpayer experience at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
“Trump’s sweetheart audit immunity deal is perhaps the most brazenly corrupt action taken by a president in American history, and Congress must permanently put a stop to the unchecked greed on display,” Wyden said. “Elected officials cannot look taxpayers in the eye and ask them to play by a set of rules that the president of the United States is exempt from. Tomorrow, senators on the Finance Committee will be able to go on the record about where they stand.”
The amendment would:
- Ban the IRS from entering into tax audit immunity agreements for a sitting president, their family, or related entities, nullifying the current agreement;
- Extend the statute of limitations so that a future IRS under a new administration could audit Trump and his family;
- Require Treasury to report to Congress about any such immunity agreements; and
- Note that no inference should be taken from the amendment, that is, the amendment implies that Trump’s sweetheart deal is already illegal notwithstanding this amendment.
Wyden and Finance Committee Democrats have been clear from the beginning that Trump’s actions to shield himself, his family and his associates from IRS scrutiny are illegal and corrupt. When the sweetheart deal was first announced, every Finance Committee Democrat demanded that Chairman Crapo investigate the facts and circumstances of how it happened.
The text of the amendment is here.
A web version of this release is here.
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