New York State is working on a way to forcibly release Donald Trump’s tax returns
Whatever Donald Trump is hiding in his tax returns, he was willing to risk losing the election just to avoid releasing them to the public. Do they show that he’s a criminal, or a Russian puppet, or that he’s so in debt he’s not really a billionaire? Only he knows. But the State of New York is working on a way to forcibly release Trump’s tax returns against his will.
The story comes by way of Politico Magazine, the New York State Assembly introduced legislation last week which would require the state to publicly post the tax returns of various elected officials. Donald Trump isn’t named in the legislation, and he isn’t the only one who would be affected by it, but the bill is clearly aimed at him (link). Politico believes that even if Trump were to go to court to try to block the release, he would likely fail.
There is one catch: New York State can only post Donald Trump’s state level tax returns, as it’s one of the states that requires residents to file on the state level. The state can’t post his federal tax returns. But there’s a decent chance that whatever Trump is hiding in his federal returns would also show up in his state tax returns.
So despite Trump’s ongoing desire to keep those secrets hidden, and his willingness to ludicrously pretend that he’s been under audit for a year and a half straight, we may end up seeing what he’s been hiding anyway.
