One taxing fight

Instead of taking the direct approach and requiring all officials elected statewide — including, yes, one Donald J. Trump — to disclose their state income tax returns to provide transparency to the public, the Legislature in Albany chickened out. Instead, they authorized the complicated handoff of New York returns to the chairs of congressional committees.

It was too cutesy, in part because completing the maneuver would mean requiring Rep. Richie Neal — who chairs the Ways and Means Committee and has already requested Trump’s federal tax returns in order, he says, to scrutinize how the IRS is using its mandatory presidential audit power — to totally change his stated rationale on a dime, weakening his case in court in the process. Oops.

Now the whole mess is being heard in D.C.

federal courts. Trump’s personal lawyers have filed legal papers making the case that the entire crusade is a thinly veiled attack on one man. Helping make that case: The first legislative effort to force out the president’s state returns was literally named the TRUMP Act. Oops again.

This didn’t have to be so involved. New York State has had an income tax since 1919. The state chooses to keep returns confidential. But given powerful and enduring corruption concerns at the state and federal level, there’s a strong public policy rationale to begin publishing the documents of those we entrust with significant power: the governor, lieutenant governor, controller, attorney general, U.S. senators and president.

Let’s see their conflicts of interest, even when they refuse to show them.