The public is roaring about President Donald Trump’s 2016 tax return. The Washington Post reports on the issue, telling us that Trump’s tax return for 2016 was just filed in October. All of the fuss is coming from the Republican Tax overhaul passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate in mid-December. The New York Times says, “The $1.5 trillion tax bill will have broad effects on the economy, making deep and lasting cuts to corporate taxes as well as temporarily lowering individual taxes.”
The White House reported that the new tax plan could cost Trump a lot of money, and skeptics are looking for proof. Hence the demand for an audit of the President’s 2016 tax return. There are three potential types of audits that the IRS could carry out. A correspondence audit, office audit, or field audit are all options for the IRS if they decide to look into Donald Trump’s return for 2016.
A former IRS official reports to the Washington Post that two months after the return is filed is essentially immediately after, in tax time. The former official tells the Washington Post that “It takes about that long (two months) for the return to work its way through the service center and actually be available for a revenue agent.”
It is awfully soon to be completing an audit just two months after a return is submitted, but not impossible. This former official suggests a couple of reasons why President Donald Trump is being considered for an audit of his 2016 tax return.
The first is that the Trump enterprises are constantly under the surveillance of the IRs, like any other major corporation. He does say, however, that this possibility is the least likely.
The former IRS official also suggests that “maybe IRS flagged something while auditing one of Trump’s previous filings and decided in advance of his 2016 filing that it would review the new document as soon as it arrived, to determine whether Trump continues to employ whatever tax strategy the IRS might be scrutinizing.”
It has not yet been released whether or not the President’s tax return is under audit by the IRS. The President seems to remain to stay private about his tax information, so the knowledge may or may not ever be released.