Bill Pascrell: “The legislation on the floor today contains within it the Presidential Tax Transparency Act, a bill that I lead with our…”

“The legislation on the floor today contains within it the Presidential Tax Transparency Act, a bill that I lead with our prime sponsor, Representative Anna Eshoo from California. This legislation requires sitting Presidents as well as future Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates to release 10 years of their tax returns. The manager's amendment is right to add disclosure of returns of any business in which the candidate is a prime owner. These commonsense transparency measures will codify into law the precedence of Presidential candidates releasing their tax returns, a precedent that goes back to Richard Nixon. President Trump broke with more than 40 years of this precedent when he declined to release his tax returns, despite promising to release them. He has yet to do so, and recent polls show 64 percent of Americans support their release. Thanks to the Oversight Committee, we now have on-the-record testimony in evidence that this President may have committed crimes as President. Michael Cohen received reimbursement for illegal campaign contributions from Trump directly. If President Trump wrote these payments off as a business expense, that would constitute fraud, and his returns will show that. In addition, The Trump Organization allegedly inflated their revenue in financial documents to obtain loans. The business' tax returns would show whether their profits were accurate or if they filed fraudulent documents.…”