Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie argued that even if Neal isn’t enthusiastic about the bill yet, he might eventually be. | Adek Berry/AFP via Getty Images How New York Democrats plan to unlock Trump's taxes

ALBANY — A tax attorney from White Plains and a state senator whose district is across the street from Trump Tower may have figured out a way to achieve a goal Democrats have had their eyes on for nearly four years: getting a glimpse at President Donald Trump’s taxes.

The New York Assembly is poised to pass legislation on Wednesday to allow the release of the president’s state tax returns to three congressional committees. The documents could show some of the figures that have been elusive for years as Trump has refused to follow presidential convention and publicly release his tax returns. Since the state Senate already has passed the measure and Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo supports it, U.S. House Democrats could theoretically ask for and receive Trump’s state tax returns in a matter of weeks.


The legislation, sponsored by Assemblyman David Buchwald, the tax attorney, and state Sen. Brad Hoylman, the president's virtual neighbor, would let New York’s Department of Taxation and Finance share the tax returns of state residents with three congressional committees — House Ways and Means, Senate Finance and the Joint Committee on Taxation — if they are requested.

“New York state could play a unique role with regards to transparency of tax returns in connection with the president,” said Buchwald (D-White Plains). “That’s because he’s a New York state resident and his state tax returns would have his worldwide income.”

These returns would be similar to the federal returns that national Democrats have focused on. They would not be exactly the same, however. Federal rules mandate that states keep information that the IRS shares with them confidential. In an attempt to to avoid running afoul of this requirement, the bill carves out information that is directly transferred onto the state forms, such as itemized income.

New York's move could checkmate the Trump administration's latest effort to keep the president's federal returns private. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin last week said the administration wouldn't comply with a subpoena for the returns issued by a leading U.S. House Democrat and the dispute appears headed for court, where it could take months to resolve.

The New York returns would presumably contain a number of new details about the president’s financial situation. And they could provide some major clues about the big picture, said University of Chicago Law School professor Daniel Hemel.

“One of the big concerns about Trump’s tax returns is that he just hasn’t been paying taxes for the last several decades … that he’s been reporting a federal [adjusted gross income] of zero, while all the while holding himself out as a billionaire, which suggests that he’s either a liar or a tax cheat,” Hemel said.

"What New York is doing here is providing information that would be useful to [House committees]," Hemel added.

Both Hoylman and Buchwald have spent years attempting to find a state-level solution to obtaining Trump’s taxes. Hoylman began the fight a month after the 2016 election, when he introduced the Tax Returns Uniformly Made Public, or T.R.U.M.P. Act. It would prohibit presidential candidates from appearing on the ballot in New York if they haven't made their returns public.

His idea has since spread nationally, with similar bills introduced in about half of the states and several of them beginning to move.

But it’s run into roadblocks, including the reality that Trump could remain off the ballot in blue states like New York and not hurt his chances at reelection. Former California Gov. Jerry Brown, hardly a Trump apologist, raised constitutional concerns about a state keeping a presidential contender off the ballot when he vetoed a similar measure in 2017.

Buchwald proposed a different approach. A physics major as an undergraduate and a tax lawyer by trade, he has gained a reputation for taking on important but wonky questions — the most significant bill he previously introduced was a constitutional amendment that enacted a decades-old proposal to strip elected officials convicted of felonies of their public pensions.

In 2017, he came across articles from Hemel arguing that the tax returns submitted to New York were worth seeking.

“He and his colleagues had outlined some approaches, but they were in an academic setting, and it was my path with others to put that into an actual bill format,” Buchwald said. “And once we did that, the idea took off.”

Buchwald’s bill would have had the state simply release the returns of any state residents serving as president who hadn’t voluntarily made them public. And that idea did indeed take off, obtaining the support of most of Albany’s Democrats. Republicans, however, controlled the state Senate at the time, meaning the bill didn’t go anywhere.

But that changed after November, and legislators and their staffs began to reimagine the existing proposals in an attempt to craft a bill that accomplished the goal of obtaining Trump’s taxes without running afoul of privacy concerns and the constitutional prohibition on bills of attainder.

Even when the bill is passed and presumably signed, it won’t necessarily guarantee the returns will be immediately delivered to Washington. For one, the president could try to block the law through the courts, although the sponsors are confident it would withstand judicial scrutiny.

“We have strived to ensure that New York state is on firm legal footing,” Buchwald said. “And I recognize that the president’s very fond of litigation, but ultimately New York is in charge of New York state tax returns.”

And House Democrats would actually have to to request the documents.

House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) has praised the measure. “This legislation would make the work of a federal committee a little easier. If confronted with inability to receive the federal tax return, we can turn to New York State," he said.

But Nadler’s committee isn’t one of the three that would have the power to request the returns. And the chairman of one the committees named in the bill, House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal, has not embraced the bill as strongly as Nadler has, saying he’s still focused on the federal returns.

“This wouldn’t matter for our purposes,” his spokesperson recently told Bloomberg, referring to the New York legislation. “The committee is investigating the mandatory presidential audit program at the IRS to determine whether or not the program needs to be codified into federal law.”

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie argued that even if Neal isn’t enthusiastic about the bill yet, he might eventually be.

“The chair of Ways and Means said he isn't happy about this legislation because he still wants the federal government to do their job, but this could be ‘in case of emergency, break glass’ type legislation,” Heastie said.

“Even if the Congress never requests the information or if perhaps they obtain the taxes through the federal channel,” Hoylman said, “we will have done our part to shine a spotlight on Congress’ role and support the concept of presidential tax transparency.”