POLITICS/TRUMP TAXES/TAXES: “President Trump doesn’t have to publicly disclose his tax returns, now or ever.
But some members of Congress can, if they want.
Thanks to a little-known and rarely used provision in the law, either the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee or the Joint Committee on Taxation may request anyone’s tax returns to examine — including the president’s — from the secretary of the Treasury.
They wouldn’t need to tell anyone that they did so. They could share the returns with their committee members in closed session. And if one of the committees thinks releasing the returns to the House or Senate would further a legitimate committee purpose and be in the public interest, they can do that, too — without Trump’s consent, said George Yin, a former chief of staff at the Joint Committee on Taxation and a professor of law at the University of Virginia.”
– Jeanne Sahadi, “How Congress could get Trump’s tax returns,” CNN Money, CNN.com, Feb. 7, 2017