Reading Room Document

Requests of the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives for certain information regarding the President's income tax returns for 1969 and subsequent years.

The OLC issued this memorandum after the House Judiciary Committee sought information regarding President Nixon’s tax returns for 1969 and subsequent years. Specifically, the memo addressed whether the committee’s impeachment powers overrode statutory provisions of the Internal Revenue Code relating to the disclosure of tax return information (26 U.S.C. § 6103) and concluded that they did not. The OLC agreed that all information requested fell within § 6103 and found that the judiciary committee did not have the authority to inspect tax returns under § 6103, notwithstanding the fact that it had been delegated the separate constitutional power of impeachment. This was because the judiciary committee was not a “select committee” “specifically authorized” to investigate the returns under the provision.

May 25, 1974