Fifth District Rep. Tom Garrett (R-Va.) introduced legislation on Tuesday which would require future presidents-elect to release their tax returns. This bill is a direct result of Garrett’s town hall held at the University last Friday.
During the town hall, constituents of the Fifth District asked Garrett about his opinion on President Donald Trump’s refusal to fully release his tax returns.
“I don’t care,” Garrett said. “I really don’t.”
In response to his answer, a woman in the audience called out to him, “your constituents care.”
When pressed further, Garrett said there is no requirement for presidents to release their tax returns, but he would file a bill to make it a requirement.
“I will put together a bill that will require future presidential candidates to release their tax returns as they initially run for office,” Garrett said. “If this is that important to you, we’ll file the bill next week.”
Garrett followed through with his promise and introduced the “President-elect Release of Tax Return Act of 2017.” The language of the bill differs slightly from the language Garrett referenced at the town hall — it requires future President-elects to release their four most recent taxable years before the official count of electoral votes in January.
Andrew Griffin, communications director and deputy chief of staff for Garrett, said the bill should be bipartisan.
“I think generally speaking if you want to talk about any time there is a leader of the free world coming in … the more transparency the better,” Griffin said. “It doesn’t matter if there is a Republican or a Democrat in the White House, we are in support of that.”
Griffin also said the issue of Trump’s tax returns is a partisan attack, and Garrett is focusing on other issues such as health care.
“I don’t think it is fair that a certain population in the country doesn’t like how the president is now, we are going to go back and change the status quo when it comes to tax returns,” Griffin said. “A lot of this anger seems to be because of people not liking the current administration.”
David Singerman, the co-organizer of Indivisible Charlottesville, a local group dedicated to resisting the Trump administration, criticized this bill for its specific language regarding the deadline of when the tax returns would be due.
“[Garrett] said that he would present a bill that would require future presidential candidates to release tax returns,” Singerman said. “The issue with this bill is that it doesn’t do that. It requires future president-elects to release their tax returns, but of course, that is after they have been elected, after the votes have been cast. And the problem with candidate Trump was that he did not release his tax returns.”
Singerman also criticized the bill for only applying to future president-elects and not for Trump.
“Donald Trump was in real estate for many decades where the name of the game is to go into debt,” Singerman said. “So we don’t know who Donald Trump owes money to or who his investors are.”
Griffin said he isn’t very optimistic for the bill’s chances in the future. Democrats on Capitol Hill have already introduced variations of this bill in recent months with little result.
“To be honest, I don’t think that [the bill] will get a lot of traction,” Griffin said. “We have issues left and right that are way more pressing.”
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