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.
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Commentary: Release Pelosi’s Tax Returns
Court Rules Congress Can Obtain Trump’s Tax Returns One Day After Mar-a-Lago Raid
One day after FBI agents raided Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday that the Internal Revenue Service must hand over the former president’s tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee.
Read MoreCommentary: Be Very Skeptical About Sen. Warren Throwing More Money at the IRS
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.
Read MoreTax, Legal Experts Agree Leaker of Trump’s Tax Returns Could Face Prison Time
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.
Read MoreThe New York Times Claims It Has Obtained President Trump’s Tax Returns, Trump Organization Attorney Says ‘The Facts Appear to be Inaccurate’
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.”
Read MoreFederal Judge Blocks California’s Trump Tax Return Law
On Thursday, a federal judge blocked the state of California from enforcing a newly-passed law that was directly targeting President Donald Trump over his tax returns, as reported by Reuters.
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