WASHINGTON: US congressional Democrats on Saturday headed for a showdown with the over President Donald Trump’s tax returns, setting a new hard deadline of April 23 for the federal tax agency to hand the documents over to lawmakers.
In an April 13 letter that appeared to move Democrats closer to a federal court against the administration, House Ways and Means Committee chairman warned the IRS that failure to comply with his request for six years of Trump’s individual and business returns would be interpreted as a denial. The Trump administration has already missed an initial April 10 deadline for providing the records.
But treasury secretary said that Neal was “just picking arbitrary dates” in setting deadlines and said it was more important to get the decision “right” to ensure the IRS would not be “weaponized” in a political dispute. “There are constitutional issues,” He could not say whether the Treasury, which oversees the IRS, would complete its review of Neal’s request by April 23.