House Democrats Formally Request Trump’s Tax Returns

House Democrats have formally demanded Donald Trump’s tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service, marking a major bid to obtain information about the president’s finances and business dealings.

Richard Neal, the chairman of the House ways and means committee, issued the request on Wednesday evening, stating: “It is critical to ensure the accountability of our government and elected officials.”

“I today submitted to IRS Commissioner [Charles] Rettig my request for six years of the president’s personal tax returns as well as the returns for some of his business entities,” Neal wrote.

Trump is the first president in decades to not make any of his tax returns public. He has cited an audit, but the IRS has said that audits don’t prevent people from releasing their own tax information.

Many lawmakersand tax experts have said they expect the tax-returns issue to result in a lengthy court case, and those expectations prompted Neal to take his time before requesting the documents.