Question: How can it be verified that a tax return published on a website is

[mobeau69]

an actual, unedited copy of the one sent to the IRS? Wouldn't they have to be notarized by the IRS?

Just curious how that works.

[WeekiWater]

1. Depending on the individual...

Thousands of educated people scour through every detail of the returns. At some point there has to be a small amount of trust. Questioning everything leaves one believing in nothing.

[question everything]

21. Hey!

[mobeau69]

27. Now that's funny!

[MelissaB]

52. Why do we not have DUzys anymore?

[Cha]

53. lol.. I finally got

that!

[MythosMaster]

2. Did trump finally release his taxes?

I have not been paying attention to radio news for a while.

[Snotcicles]

4. Lol. nt

[mobeau69]

5. Congress will be getting his copies direct from the IRS.

No way they would accept his word that he was giving them the same thing filed with the IRS.

[Iggo]

17. LOL @ people being more anti-Sanders than anti-GOP.

[mobeau69]

24. That's funny that you'd automatically assume I was being anti-Sanders.

I could care less about Bernie and his taxes. I know there have been literally hundreds of posts about them but not one was ever authored by me.

And someone in this thread was calling me paranoid!

[Iggo]

46. The more you deny it...

[aidbo]

54. Then why did you post this in the primary side? If this was about trump, it should be in GD.

[mobeau69]

55. Now that's a good question!

The answer is I screwed up. Thanks for pointing that out.

[MythosMaster]

56. Sad isn't it

I have been avoiding those thread post. Bickering Bickersons.

[SFnomad]

3. Who gets their tax returns notarized? At best, if you have a preparer, they sign it as well

How could someone notarize it unless they were there when you prepared it and sent it in?

Typically a notary is there to say, yes, you're the person who you say you are, when you signed a document. They're typically nothing more than a witness ... they're not a fact checking service.

[mobeau69]

6. How can you be 100% sure that what you're looking at is an

actual copy of the exact forms you filed with the IRS?

[SFnomad]

7. Isn't that what I just said? n/t

[mobeau69]

8. My bad, I should have wrote certified instead of notarized.

Are the copies certified and who else could do the certification but the IRS?

[SFnomad]

9. Again, who could certify it except someone who was there the moment you sent it to the IRS?

The IRS isn't going to release copies to the public.

All we can do is go over what they give us and try to find inconsistencies. Changes in typeface or font. Pages that appear to be incomplete or missing. Numbers that don't add up. And that kind of investigative type work is done by experts. I'm certain every candidate that has released tax documents have been subjected to that minimum level of scrutiny.

[mobeau69]

10. who could certify it except someone who was there the moment you sent it to the IRS?

The IRS could.

[SFnomad]

11. The IRS legally cannot, they cannot release anything to the public n/t

[mobeau69]

12. I understand that.

But couldn't they release a certified copy to the individual who filed them if requested by that individual?

[SFnomad]

13. I've never heard of such a thing, but that of course doesn't mean it doesn't exist

But I would expect it doesn't exist. Why should it?

I really don't understand where this level of paranoia is coming from. We're having enough trouble just getting some people to release their taxes, trying to make it even more difficult would seem to be an easy way for candidates to feign issues with being able to supply them and using the IRS as the fall guys. And the system we currently have seems to be more than adequate.

If a candidate were to supply tax returns and they turn out to be fakes, that would probably end their candidacy ... a huge incentive to be honest. Just look at what happened to BS when he only supplied his 2 summary pages for that one year (I believe 2014) ... he was rightly criticized and finally, after lots of badgering, finally released the entire return.

[mobeau69]

19. Form 4506

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f4506.pdf

$50.00 fee.

[SFnomad]

28. It's not a certified copy. I have no idea why you're beating this horse ... but enjoy yourself n/t

Last edited Fri Apr 19, 2019, 08:22 PM - Edit history (1)

[BlueFlorida]

33. You can only get your OWN return that way

not a third party's.

[mobeau69]

47. Correct, wasn't asking about a third party's though.

You can request yours to be sent directly to a third party on the form.

[George II]

14. One way of telling if it's genuine or unedited is if all pages are the same format and....

....the size and font of numerical entries are all the same.

If not.....

[mobeau69]

22. Thanks but I guess I wasn't clear about what I was asking.

However, even with forensic accounting you'd need the original for comparison.

Form 4506 and $50.00 will get it.

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f4506.pdf

[artislife]

15. What next? Birth Certificate questions?

Crazy town.

[brooklynite]

16. It doesn't "work"

You prepare a tax submission. You make it public. People accept its veracity or they don't.

Are you demanding a "long form" tax filing?

[LAS14]

18. mobeau69 is just asking a question, as far as I can tell. Why...

...cast the OP in a negative light?

[mobeau69]

26. FYI

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f4506.pdf

$50.00

[SFnomad]

29. No, they're not just asking a question. They're beating this into the ground for no apparent

reason or gain.

[mobeau69]

25. Found it!

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f4506.pdf

[question everything]

20. If someone "self prepares" - like Sanders, you can wonder

but others who had them prepared by CPA's - like Klobuchar - where the official letter is included in all 70 pages, you know it is true.

[mobeau69]

23. If it was rump, I'd still question it.

[Lefta Dissenter]

30. 4506-T

Doesn’t cost the $50, and provides a transcript of the income tax return so you can see if the numbers shown on the published return match those reported to the IRS. I don’t know if the transcripts include all of the schedules, however.

[mobeau69]

31. Thanks a lot.

[BlueFlorida]

34. You can only get your OWN return that way

Not someone else's.

[Lefta Dissenter]

36. Right,

Or have it assigned. But if I published my returns and wanted people to be able to verify that I was being honest in what I published, I’d get the transcript requested right away - to be sent to the New York Times, perhaps.

[BlueFlorida]

38. There are enough irregularties

in self-prepared returns to make one's head spin and such people are not likely to get the transcript for the NY Times.

Changes in font,
randomly inserted scanned pages,
the amounts on some pages in dollars and cents (when the software should have rounded off to whole dollars),
foreign bank account in one year but not the previous,
no bank interest reported in one year but is reported in previous and subsequent years,
some pages with only one spouse's name and SS# (when the software would have put BOTH in a joint return),
Form 8949 with redacted description of the asset that was disposed off (Amazon stock maybe?),
no dividends reported whatsoever (most people have some dividend income and especially if they are well-to-do.)

There are a lot of tell-tale signs of inauthenticity.

[NurseJackie]

40. "There are a lot of tell-tale signs of inauthenticity." --- I'm glad people are noticing...

There are a lot of tell-tale signs of inauthenticity.

I'm glad people are noticing and starting to take a closer look. It's naive to think that after all this time, after all the delays and excuses, that people wouldn't be even MORE interested now than they would have been 2 or 3 years ago.

I'm just saying that the behavior all along raised red flags and people started to ask "what's going on?" and "what's motivating this secret and evasive behavior?"

Now people are starting to notice discrepancies that are inconsistent with how things would have been if these were the full original tax returns AS they were originally submitted to the IRS.

Personally speaking, I think the mystery foreign bank account and the no-bank-interest being reported is a big concern to me. What's going on with that? I'm very grateful that people with more experience than I have are taking a very close and critical look.

I think that the American people deserve complete transparency and honesty in matters like this. We need to get to the bottom of this and find out exactly what's going on before it's too late.

[BlueFlorida]

41. There is also an income discrepancy

One spouse's severance pay and another spouse's salary would have made the income far more than reported. There could be another explanation for it but it needs to be asked.

[NurseJackie]

42. BS has certainly opened the door himself to this type of scrutiny (and criticism).

BS has certainly opened the door himself to this type of scrutiny (and criticism). I think it's perfectly fair and legitimate to be asking these types of questions when it comes to facts and figures that are ALREADY in the public arena and have been reported on.

Personally, I'm not at all convinced that this is all there is, or that these are the full and original returns AS ORIGINALLY SUBMITTED to the IRS. It just looks like there's something funny going on and the American people deserve clarification. We need honest answers.

I, for one, am glad that the hard questions are being asked.

[BlueFlorida]

43. The good thing is that there are

experts from at least 10 campaigns looking at those very things and waiting for the right moment to pounce.

[NurseJackie]

44. Are you including the GOP and Russia? If (ha!) he were the nominee, you know...

Are you including the GOP and Russia? If (ha!) he were the nominee, you know they would be very eager to reveal what they know and to revisit the speeches, interviews and writings of our party's nominee.... no matter who he (or she) may be.

I just think that all things considered, we need to have a squeaky clean nominee. When it comes to BS, I think we can do better than him as a party and as a nation. I just don't think he's qualified, and he doesn't have the demeanor or personality to make an effective leader.

We have an abundance of DEMOCRATIC talent to choose from this time around... why go backward? Why look to the past?

I support Democrats only.

[BlueFlorida]

45. I'm sure Trump is reading the essays nt

[Hassin Bin Sober]

35. Yep, we use them in mortgage underwriting.

A 4506t is signed as part of the loan application.

[mobeau69]

48. Do you require it to be sent directly to you from the IRS or

does something like a sealed copy form the IRS and provided to you by the entity requesting the loan acceptable?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

49. We get it directly from the irs

[mobeau69]

51. Thanks. That's what I suspected.

I'm familiar with certification used in the foundry/manufacturing business and traceability and certification are time consuming but essential elements. Entities like the DOD don't just take the manufacturers word that a casting is made from a particular alloy just because they claim it is.

[BlueFlorida]

32. One cannot verify it unless the taxpayer consents

and authorizes the IRS to release the original returns.

Tax returns are considered to be prima facie privileged information.

One way lawyers get around it is by serving a subpoena on a bank that has made a loan to that entity or individual and since banks require tax returns, one gets to verify.

[KayF]

37. good question imho

my guess is that it would be very difficult to fake. These candidates all file financial disclosure statements, and if the tax return was faked, reporters could find discrepancies.

Also, if tax returns could be faked, Trump would have done it long ago.

[BlueFlorida]

39. See post #38

[Autumn]

50. Contact the Wall Street Journal maybe? They had an expert go over Beto's returns and

found errors that his accounting firm will fix. Maybe they will go over Bernie's. I first read it on WP but I'm out of free articles.

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/article229318389.html
Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke says he'll amend "as appropriate" federal tax returns from 2013 and 2014, when he may have underpaid around $4,000 because of incorrectly deducted medical expenses.

O'Rourke late Monday released 10 years of returns filed by himself and his wife, Amy, through 2017. The ex-congressman promised to release 2018 returns as soon as they're filed.

The incorrectly reported deductions were first reported by The Wall Street Journal, which had a tax professional review O'Rourke's returns. The review spotted that O'Rourke deducted almost $16,000 worth of medical expenses when he should only have deducted 10 percent of income.

A campaign spokesman said Tuesday that "after becoming aware of this error, the accounting firm that prepared the filings was immediately informed and will file an amendment as appropriate."