California Poised To Require Presidential Candidates Release Tax Returns Before Appearing On Ballot

The state of California is likely to send a bill to its governor soon, which, if he signs it, will require any candidate for president to submit the past five years of their tax returns for inspection by the citizenry.

The bill, passed on Monday by the state Assembly, would be enforced by the 2020 election, if it’s approved by the state Senate, ABC 7 reported.

A previous version of the bill passed the state Senate earlier this year, per previous reporting from HillReporter.com. Minimal changes to the bill were made in the Assembly version, which would require gubernatorial candidates to make the same disclosures in order to appear on the ballot.

The Assembly version, which will likely pass the Senate’s muster, would require the past five years of tax returns to be made available to citizens for their consideration. If passed, the bill would go to Gov. Gavin Newsom for his consideration.

The issue was a moot one for quite some time, up until now-President Donald Trump refused to release his tax records. In 2016, he said an audit of his returns prevented him from releasing them, although officially the IRS said that audits wouldn’t prevent anyone from doing so if they wanted to, per reporting from Axios.

Trump promised to make his tax returns available for public review in 2016, but said he was prevented from doing so until an audit on his returns was completed (the IRS has gone on record saying that such a restriction does not exist). In April of this year, according to CNBC, Trump reneged on the idea of releasing his taxes, saying that “frankly, the people don’t care.”

Polling on that question showcases that Trump’s assumptions are wrong. As it turns out, 51 percent of Americans support Democrats’ efforts in Congress to continue attempts to gain access to Trump’s tax returns, according to a Politico/Morning Consult poll on the issue.