House passes bill to ensure yearly presidential tax audit is conducted

Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Following revelations that the Internal Review Service failed to audit former President Donald Trump during the final two years of his tenure, House Democrats have passed legislation mandating the federal agency conduct a yearly tax audit of the sitting president.

The Presidential Tax Filings and Audit Transparency Act passed the House 222-201 mostly along party lines on Thursday with only five Republicans jumping the aisle to approve the bill with their Democratic counterparts.

The bill was introduced by Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., after the House ways and means committee of which he chairs earlier in the week released a summary of Trump's tax returns, showing that no audit was conducted during his final two years in office and that only one was done during the entirety of his presidency.

The release of Trump's taxes follows four years of the committee attempting to get their hands on them through litigation.

The IRS adopted a policy to conduct mandatory audits on the president and vice president in 1977 as a check on power and to ensure no employees would be retaliated against for doing their jobs. The bill introduced by Neal would ensure that the audit is conducted every year as soon as possible after the president files his taxes.

Public updates on the status of the audits are also mandated within 90 days under the bill and extends to any entities they may own as well as their spouses.

From the floor on Thursday, Neal framed the legislation as an affirmation that all Americans are equal citizens and that no person is above the law, especially the president.

"These improved guardrails will provide Americans the assurance they deserve that our tax code applies evenly and fairly to all of us no matter how powerful," he said.

Neal explained that his committee started examining the IRS' presidential auditing program to ensure it was able to handle the stress of such a complicated case as the one presented by Trump, but found that the program had essentially been dormant.

"It wasn't just functioning poorly, it was not functioning at all," he said.

"The IRS has failed to administer its own mandatory audit program policies so the best available recourses for Congress to fill this void is with legislation that eliminates the IRS' discretion in the matter," he said. "I can't image that any body given the controversy of recent days would be opposed to this legislation."

Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, the ranking Republican member of the committee, countered that the bill is a "charade" and a "flimsy excuse" used to justify the political targeting of the former president.

"This unprecedented action jeopardizes the right of every American be protected from political targeting by Congress," he said from the floor.

"Our Republican concerns are not whether the president should have made his tax returns public as has been traditional nor by the accuracy of the tax returns -- that's for the IRS and the for tax payers to determine -- our concern is that this politically motivated action sets a terrible precedent that unleashes a dangerous new political weapon reaching far beyond any president," he said.

In a statement Thursday after the bill was passed, Neal countered that the legislation is not about any one president -- its about the presidency.

"This legislation will put guardrails in place to right the wrongs the ways and means committee uncovered earlier this week, and ensure the tax code is applied evenly and fairly to all, even the president," he said.