New FOIAs Seek Treasury Department’s Secret Tax Bill Analyisis

American Oversight filed a set of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests on Thursday evening to force the Treasury Department to turn over records related to a purported “analysis” of the tax proposal currently being considered in Congress.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has repeatedly asserted that the proposed tax cuts would be offset by revenue gains resulting from economic growth, citing an analysis of the bill that he claimed the Treasury Department had performed. Despite repeated requests, the department has failed to make any such analysis public.

On November 30, the New York Times reported that a Treasury Department economist admitted that the department had “not released a ‘dynamic’ analysis showing that the tax plan would be paid for with economic growth because one did not exist.”

“It’s time for the doubletalk and the lies to stop, so American Oversight is demanding a straight answer. If this secret tax analysis exists, Treasury will have to release it to the public, and if it doesn’t exist, Treasury will have to admit that Secretary Mnuchin lied,” said Austin Evers, American Oversight’s Executive Director.

American Oversight filed four requests with Treasury seeking “any report, modeling, analysis, assessment, or other estimate regarding the economic impact of proposed tax reform legislation, including its impact on fiscal revenues,” including any such documents that Treasury has shared with Congress or other agencies.