Tax Returns

I am a little baffled about the kerfuffle over Trump’s tax returns ... both federal and New York state. It would seem to me that both the state and federal tax authorities have total access to these returns and, if there are any issues of fraud or concealment, that these issues are to be adjudicated between the experts in the relevant tax authorities and Trump’s tax experts. Since New York is clearly not friendly to Trump and the IRS under Obama displayed overt hostility toward Republicans, one would think that any possible malfeasance in these returns has been well inspected.

And, since any tax issues have been well scrutinized by the experts on both sides, what makes the spittle-flecked Democrats believe that non-tax experts in the general public will any be better equipped to deal with the nuances of such tax disputes. The only rationale for airing these very complex tax returns in public would seem to be to try to find some extra-legal info that can be used to embarrass Trump politically. And this seems to be exactly the reason why tax returns have been decreed to be kept private.

Tax law issues in Trump’s returns are best resolved between the attorneys on both sides ... or in the relevant tax courts ... not on the hostile editorial pages of the Washington Post.