IRS seemingly violated policy by not auditing Trump's taxes which requires mandatory review

A stunning new report by the Democrat-led House Ways and Means committee found that the IRS only began auditing former President Trump in 2019. 

Democrats say the IRS did not begin auditing Trump until the same day they asked for his tax returns in April 2019 - two years into his presidency.  

This finding reveals the IRS to be in violating of its own policy dating back to the Nixon administration of vetting president's returns every year they are in office. It also runs up against Trump's entire reasoning for not releasing his returns in 2016 - when he claimed he was under continuous audit. 

The report renews the question - why did Trump break with the post-Watergate tradition of presidential candidates releasing their tax returns? 

'I would love to give them, but I’m not going to do it while I’m under audit,' he said on April 10, 2019. 

In February 2016, he had  pledged to release his taxes during a debate. 

'I will absolutely give my return,' Trump said, 'but I'm being audited now for two or three years, so I can't do it until the audit is finished, obviously.'

Even if he were under audit, no laws banned Trump from releasing his returns at the same time.  

In 1977 the IRS decided to vet every president's tax returns - policy designed to spare the agency from the appearance of political bias when making decisions about which presidents to audit. 

Democrats release report on Trump's taxes: the highlights 

Little is known about the process, but a 1998 law makes White House meddling in audits a felony. 

Ways and Means chairman Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., said he saw no evidence Trump's White House tried to discourage the IRS from probing his returns, but said the audit process was 'dormant, at best.' 

The committee released the IRS report at the same time it released a summary from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) covering Trump's taxes from 2015-2020.

The IRS did not begin auditing any of the president's tax returns from his time in office until April 3, 2019, the same day Neal requested the committee be provided with the returns. 

That audit covered Trump's 2015 returns. Six months later in September, the IRS began probing the 2016 returns. Trump's filings for 2017, 2018 and 2019 were not selected for examination until after he left office. 

Only 2016's filings were designated as a mandatory audit by the IRS, despite longstanding policy that all of them should have been mandatory. 

When reached by phone, the IRS press office referred DailyMail.com to an email address. Emails asking for explanation were not immediately returned. 

A New York Times report found Trump was facing an audit tied to his 2009 tax return tied to a $72.9 million refund he received after claiming $700 million in losses. Documents in the JCT report show Trump continued to collect tax benefits from those losses through 2018. 

IRS agents apparently did not bring in specialists to help look over the complicated nature of Trump's holdings. They reasoned that limited examination was warranted because they assumed Trump's own accounting firm would make sure Trump 'properly reports all income and deduction items correctly.'

'We must express disagreement with the decision not to engage any specialists when facing returns with a high degree of complexity,' the tax committee said. 'We also fail to understand why the fact that counsel and an accounting firm participated in tax preparation ensures the accuracy of the returns.'