Congress should mandate tax return disclosure for Presidents and presidential candidates

[digiphile]

Congress should mandate tax return disclosure for Presidents and presidential candidates https://sunlightfoundation.com/2016/05/12/congress-should-mandate-tax-return-disclosure-for-presidential-candidates/

Learning about the businesses, business partners and the state of those activities of candidates can help understand how their judgment might be affected by their financial transactions and debts.

Unlike Congress, presidents are exempt from conflict-of-interest laws. This makes disclosure of income tax returns especially important to shed light on areas of possible conflicts of interest. Yearly salaries are often reported in the news but tax returns reveal so much more about the character of the candidate. Their debts give us a broader sense of the state of their finances, and perhaps more importantly an idea to whom they could feel beholden. We learn how much (or little) they paid in taxes, and whether they utilized loopholes in tax law to avoid paying those taxes. It sheds light on whether they conducted activity that they have criticized on the campaign trail. https://sunlightfoundation.com/2016/07/27/why-is-the-tax-return-a-big-deal-and-what-information-can-you-learn-from-it/

Annual tax returns of every presidential candidate and President disclosed in machine-readable format on FEC.gov.

[rebeccawilliams]

Notes to consider:

• Reframe this commitment as a commit by the Admin to disclose this info per past norms
• Reframe this commitment as a commit by the Admin to support the legislation above
• is FEC.gov the best location or is it ethics.gov?
• in addition to the President do any other political appointees need a tax return disclosure commitment or do all others currently disclosed?