President Trump threatened to go beyond Harvard University and other non -profit organizations of their tax exemption status. This is one of the many ways that the president has tried to influence the tax collection agency.
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From the use of tax data to trace immigrants without legal status to the threat of tax exemption from Harvard University, President Trump tried to use IRS for his own political ends, in a way that may seem unprecedented.
But this is not the case. Former President Richard Nixon laid the foundations more than four decades ago when he tried to use the tax collector to punish his enemies and help his friends.
“One of the things Nixon considered it was to threaten the tax exemptions from universities,” said Joseph Thorni, director of the tax history project among tax analysts. “And it seems very familiar if you read the newspaper these days.”
Nixon was angry with universities for not having seduced the demonstrators of the Vietnam War. Trump also complained about Harvard and other Ivy League schools not more to silence protests against war in Gaza, in the midst of a repression of the administration against anti -Semitism on university campuses.
“We are going to remove Harvard tax exemption,” wrote Trump in a Social media message. “This is what they deserve!”
Trump relies on the old Nixon game book, despite the laws put in place after Watergate to prevent this kind of interference from the White House.
Congress has protections in place for IRS
The 1971 oval offices recordings reveal how Nixon sought to install a handpicked executor at the IRS to make his political auctions.
“I want to be sure he is a ruthless slut son,” Nixon told aid about an IRS potential candidate. “That he will do what he said. Let every declaration of income that I want to see, I see. That he will go after our enemies and will not continue our friends. It is as simple as that.”
Richard Nixon is shown on a television screen.
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Nixon’s plans to feed income declarations or ask the IRS investigation of the targets of its “list of enemies”, have not always succeeded, says Thormiike.
But not for lack of trying.
“Nixon tried very hard to abuse IRS,” said Thormiike. “Congress certainly saw it as a danger later. If the president develops enemies and sends them to the IRS and saying essentially:” I want you to audit all these people I don’t like “, it is worrying. And therefore the congress was very interested in preventing it.”
After Nixon left office, Congress adopted laws to protect the IRS – and taxpayers – from the political interference of the White House. These laws are now tested by the Trump administration.
Sharing tax information with agencies outside the IRS
For example, Congress has adopted a law to strictly limit which can access the information that taxpayers voluntarily provide to the IRS.
But last month, the tax collection agency concluded an agreement to share some of these data from taxpayers with immigration officials to help find and expel people who are illegally.
Immigration defenders are looking for a court order to prevent the IRS from sharing data with other government agencies.
In response to an NPR survey on the data sharing agreement, a spokesperson for the Treasury Department defended the initiative as “decomposing silos of data”. But the criticisms say that these silos were placed there for a reason after the Nixon era.
“If IRS is now forced to share data with people that it is not supposed to do, it increases the risks of political targeting,” said Mike Kaercher, deputy director of the Law Center at New York University.
An acting commissioner of the IRS resigned shortly after the conclusion of the data sharing agreement. Trump is now on his fourth acting commissioner since he took office less than four months ago. His candidate for permanent employment, the former representative Billy Long, R-Mo., Always waiting for a confirmation audience.
Seeking to use the IRS to target groups
The congress also tried to prevent a replay from the list of enemies of Nixon by prohibiting the president and the people around him from asking or interfere with an investigation by the IRS.
“I worked at IRS,” said Kaercher. “If you are a person from the IRS and you are at the reception of an inappropriate request from a political official to use the IRS as a weapon, you are supposed to go to the general inspector and point out right away.”
This did not prevent Trump from emphasizing the fact that IRS should strip Harvard and other non -profit groups of their tax exemption status, which would probably require an investigation.
The loss of fiscal relief would be a blow for Harvard, which depends on the tax franchise gifts and its taxation in tax franchise for Almost half of its annual budget.
“I think Harvard is a shame,” Trump told journalists last month. “The status of tax exemption, I mean, is a privilege. It is really a privilege. And it has been abused.”
While Nixon’s plans for IRS have been secretly recorded in the oval office, Trump unveils his on social networks and live television.
“Donald Trump says it right away,” said Thormiike. “Talking about politicizing the agency in a very visible way – I guess I would say that it is a choice. I don’t think it’s a good choice for the president.”
President Trump speaks in the White House cross room in Washington, DC, during an event on April 30.
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Trump told journalists last month that he was not personally involved in the decision to revoke Harvard tax exemption. But the main Democratic senators have Called to an investigation Actions of the president by the Inspector General who oversees the IRS.
The Inspector General did not respond to the request for NPR comments.
“The fact that there is even a question of whether the administration violates these laws which prevent the armament of the IRS is deeply disturbing,” explains Kaercher.
Elimination of the application of the IRS tax
At the same time, the administration calls on the IRS to investigate the individual objectives, it also seriously limits the agency’s ability to go more generally after tax cheaters.
According to a Inspector General’s reportThe administration has reduced more than 11,000 jobs to the IRS, including nearly a third of tax auditors. More reduction in staff is expected in the coming months, as part of a generalized effort to reduce the federal government.
This is likely to harm the federal budget, because each dollar spent in tax application is more than paying for itself Increase in tax collections.
“A functional and effective IRS is in all our interests,” explains Thormiike. “And hugging the staff agency, it really comes up immediately on taxpayers.”