Spokesmen for the White House and the Treasury Department did not immediately respond to CNBC's requests for comment on the subpoenas. "While I do not take this step lightly, I believe this action gives us the best opportunity to succeed and obtain the requested material," Neal wrote. "I sincerely hope that the Treasury Department will furnish the requested material in the next week so the committee can quickly begin its work." But Neal, in the letter announcing the subpoenas Friday afternoon, called his request for the returns "reasonable." The subpoenas give Rettig and Mnuchin until May 17 to return Trump's tax information. The subpoenas came four days after Mnuchin said that he would not allow Trump's personal and business tax returns to be released to Congress because he had determined that the request "lacks a legitimate legislative purpose." House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., said Friday that he has issued subpoenas to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig demanding six years of President Donald Trump 's federal tax returns. Trump has said his administration plans to fight "all the subpoenas" issued by House Democrats. House committees led by Democrats have issued subpoenas on a range of issues, demanding financial records and counterintelligence information, among other requests. In late April, Trump and his business filed suit against House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., to block a subpoena seeking information about Trump's finances. Trump has claimed, as far back as the 2016 presidential campaign, that he cannot turn over his returns because they are being audited. But there is no law precluding him from releasing them during an audit. After winning the presidency, his senior advisor, Kellyanne Conway, said Trump was "not going to release his tax returns" because "people didn't care." Ways and Means Committee member Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., said the subpoenas were necessary "only because Trump, Mnuchin, and Rettig have signaled their disdain for our laws over and over again." Neal has said his committee, along with two others in Congress, is entitled to look at any taxpayer's returns under a section of the IRS Code that says the executive branch "shall furnish" Congress with a taxpayer's information upon request. The House also is moving toward issuing a subpoena seeking to compel Attorney General William Barr to turn over the full, unredacted report by special counsel Robert Mueller and the underlying evidence obtained as part of his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and related issues. That committee, led by Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., voted to hold Barr in contempt Wednesday for the Justice Department's refusal to comply with the Democrats' subpoena. On Wednesday, the New York State Senate passed a bill that would allow the state's tax agency to release any state tax return requested by the House Ways and Means Committee, as well as the U.S. Senate Finance Committee or the Joint Committee on Taxation. The move could pave the way for New York to send Congress the president's state tax returns, which are likely to contain much of the same information that appears on his federal tax returns. Read the full press release from Neal below: WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Ways & Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-MA) released the following statement after issuing subpoenas to Department of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Charles Rettig for six years of the President's personal and business tax returns: "Last month, the Ways and Means Committee began an investigation into the mandatory audit program at the IRS in an effort to assess the extent to which the IRS audits and enforces the federal tax laws against a sitting President and to determine if those audits need to be codified into federal law. As part of that inquiry, on April 3, I requested six years of the President's personal and business tax returns, pursuant to my authority under section 6103(f) of the IRS Code. I believed then, as I do now, that reviewing the requested documents is a necessary piece of the committee's work. "Unfortunately, the Treasury Department and the IRS have denied my reasonable request. Despite the agency's denial, we on the Ways and Means Committee are still moving forward with our inquiry. After reviewing the options available to me, and upon the advice of counsel, I issued subpoenas today to the Secretary of the Treasury and the Commissioner of the IRS for six years of personal and business returns. While I do not take this step lightly, I believe this action gives us the best opportunity to succeed and obtain the requested material. I sincerely hope that the Treasury Department will furnish the requested material in the next week so the committee can quickly begin its work." Read the subpoenas to Mnuchin and Rettig below:<doc-sep>His initial invocation of the tax code provision — Section 6103 — was novel and set off a flurry of legal scholarship. The section gives the chairmen of Congress’s tax-writing committees unique powers to request information on any taxpayer from the I.R.S. and says only that the executive branch “shall” furnish the material upon request. The House Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee routinely use this method to study the effects of tax policy on real taxpayers, but there is scant precedent for using it to study a president’s tax information — a fact that Republicans seized on to oppose the effort. Ultimately, Democrats decided it posed too many risks to bring directly to court. Democrats have clamored for years for Mr. Trump to release his returns, as every other modern presidential nominee had done before him. They have speculated that the president is trying to hide details of his actual financial worth as well as information that could reveal conflicts of interest between his businesses and his governmental responsibilities. Some Democrats argue they could also reveal evidence of tax evasion. But when Mr. Neal ultimately made his request in early April for six years of Trump personal and business returns, he said he needed the information for a narrower Ways and Means investigation of “the extent to which the I.R.S. audits and enforces the federal tax laws against a president.” He repeated that justification on Friday. The requests infuriated the president and his family. Mr. Trump, his personal lawyers and his Republican allies say that rationale is absurd and that Democrats are clearly concocting a fake investigation to justify getting ahold of information they can use to politically embarrass the president. Mr. Trump’s lawyers have already formalized those arguments in two lawsuits meant to stop companies that have worked with the president from handing over financial information subpoenaed by other House committees. But it was up to Mr. Trump’s government, not his private lawyers, to decide on the Ways and Means request. After weeks of delays, Mr. Mnuchin formally rejected the request in writing on Monday, telling Mr. Neal that after consulting Treasury and Justice Department lawyers, he had determined that the request “lacks a legitimate legislative purpose” and that he was not authorized to disclose the information in question. “As you have recognized, the committee’s request is unprecedented, and it presents serious constitutional questions, the resolution of which may have lasting consequences for all taxpayers,” Mr. Mnuchin wrote. He added that the department would be willing to provide the committee more generalized information about how the I.R.S. conducts presidential audits.<doc-sep>Democrats say it's the “best opportunity” to successfully obtain the records. The House Ways and Means Committee has subpoenaed the Treasury Secretary and IRS Commissioner for six years of President Donald Trump’s tax returns after to Department of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin ignored Democrats’ request. The subpoenas, requesting the president’s returns by May 17, follow Democrats’ request for the information under an obscure 1920’s-era provision of the tax code requiring that the Treasury Secretary “shall furnish” requested tax information to Congress. The president’s lawyers and White House are expected to challenge the move and have argued that Democrats’ request does not serve a legislative purpose, an argument the administration made in its rejection of Democrats’ initial request. House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal said in a statement that the request was made to determine whether IRS audits and enforcement of the federal tax code of sitting presidents need to be codified into law.<doc-sep>The subpoena could bolster Neal’s position in federal court because it will help him demonstrate he pursued all possible avenues to obtain the returns before filing a lawsuit against the administration, said Steve Rosenthal, a legal expert at the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank. That, at least in theory, will make it less likely for the court to strike down his claim on procedural grounds.<doc-sep>
The Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday issued subpoenas to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig for six years of President Trump’s personal and business tax returns. “While I do not take this step lightly, I believe this action gives us the best opportunity to succeed and obtain the requested material,” Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Richard Neal said in a statement. “I sincerely hope that the Treasury Department will furnish the requested material in the next week so the committee can quickly begin its work.” TRUMP LEGAL TEAM ASKS FEDERAL COURT TO BLOCK HOUSE OVERSIGHT SUBPOENAS FOR FINANCIAL DOCS, AUDITS The White House did not immediately comment. Last month, Neal requested the returns from the Treasury Department, but Mnuchin denied the request saying that it lacked a “legitimate legislative purpose.” “As you have recognized, the Committee’s request is unprecedented, and it presents serious constitutional questions, the resolution of which may have lasting consequences for all taxpayers,” Mnuchin wrote in a letter this week. The topic has been a contentious one for the president since his time on the campaign trail in 2015, and throughout his administration, as he has refused to release his financial information. Trump repeatedly has claimed that his tax returns are complicated, and he has maintained that he will not release them while they are under audit by the IRS. TREASURY SECRETARY MNUCHIN DENIES HOUSE DEM'S REQUEST FOR TRUMP'S TAX RETURNS But this week, "The New York Times" obtained Trump’s federal income tax returns between 1985 and 1994. The documents revealed that Trump claimed to have lost $1.17 billion from his real estate businesses during that decade. The Times added that it had compared Trump’s tax information with other high-income earners and found that Trump “appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer. The newspaper also reported that the losses were so substantial, that in the eight of the ten years in question, Trump was able to avoid paying income tax. House Democrats have been targeting Trump’s tax returns and financial documents since they took the majority in Congress in January. As part of their lead-off ethics package, which Trump’s lawyers cited in their filing Wednesday, Democrats’ legislation required presidents to disclose at least 10 years of their tax returns to the public, in what was an apparent swipe at Trump. Fox News’ Chad Pergram, John Roberts and The Associated Press contributed to this report.