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Because, in the decades that the IRS has been handling such returns, not a single one has been leaked by the IRS. Federal law makes it a very serious criminal offense to disclose a tax return inappropriately, and the IRS has extremely strict internal controls on access to individual taxpayer records. These controls apply, by the way, not merely to the returns of high-wealth taxpayers; every tax return gets the same level of protection.If an IRS employee even so much as briefly glances at a taxpayer file without prior authorization, that employee will be promptly locked out of the computer system by IRS security oversight monitors, and TIGTA (Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration) agents will be dispatched to collect the employee and interview him or her to find out why an unauthorized access has been made. This normally takes less than fifteen minutes. If the unauthorized access was due to an honest mistake, the employee may be allowed to keep their job (provided that they don’t already have a history of such mistakes). If it was deliberate, they’ll be fired on the spot and may be referred to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution. TIGTA agents take their job very seriously. I have never heard of a single incident of a TIGTA agent becoming corrupt.The only people with the authority to avoid TIGTA oversight of access to tax return data are the Secretary of the Treasury, the Commissioner of the IRS, and a handful of members of Congress (the respective chairmen of the House Committee on Ways and Means, the Senate Committee on Finance, and the Joint Committee on Taxation). And while these officers have the right in law to inspect any taxpayer’s file, those inspections would still be logged, and these officers would still be bound by the nondisclosure provisions of federal law: while they’re allowed to inspect the returns, and have the limited authority to authorize others in their employ to inspect them for reasons of analysis, they are still not be allowed to release the return information they are allowed to see to the public generally; anyone they share the return information with for the purpose of analysis is bound by the same secrecy laws that they themselves are bound by.

There are some rough alignments, but the two Houses have somewhat different lineups of committees. For example, the House does more tax work than the Senate, so it has a (very important) committee called Ways and Means that is largely devoted to tax matters, while the Senate assigns tax bills to its Finance Committee. And corresponding committees can differ substantially in their responsibilities. The Senate's committees deal with appointments, while the House's do not. As another example, the House Rules Committee acts as an arm of the majority leadership to prescribe the terms of debate and amendments on individual bills; because the Senate has a tradition of open debate and unanimous consent, the Senate Rules and Administration Committee is far less important.

Okay people, let’s take a look at the actual laws at issue here.First, there’s the request by a congressional committee for Trump’s tax returns. Here’s what the law says(1)Committee on Ways and Means, Committee on Finance, and Joint Committee on TaxationUpon written request from the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives, the chairman of the Committee on Finance of the Senate, or the chairman of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Secretary shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such request, except that any return or return information which can be associated with, or otherwise identify, directly or indirectly, a particular taxpayer shall be furnished to such committee only when sitting in closed executive session unless such taxpayer otherwise consents in writing to such disclosure.Next, there’s the request by New York State law enforcement officials for Trump’s returns. He refused to turn them over, so they went after his accountants instead. But here’s what the same section of the U.S. Code says(d)Disclosure to State tax officials and State and local law enforcement agencies(1)In generalReturns and return information with respect to taxes imposed by chapters 1, 2, 6, 11, 12, 21, 23, 24, 31, 32, 44, 51, and 52 and subchapter D of chapter 36 shall be open to inspection by, or disclosure to, any State agency, body, or commission, or its legal representative, which is charged under the laws of such State with responsibility for the administration of State tax laws for the purpose of, and only to the extent necessary in, the administration of such laws, including any procedures with respect to locating any person who may be entitled to a refund. Such inspection shall be permitted, or such disclosure made, only upon written request by the head of such agency, body, or commission, and only to the representatives of such agency, body, or commission designated in such written request as the individuals who are to inspect or to receive the returns or return information on behalf of such agency, body, or commission. Such representatives shall not include any individual who is the chief executive officer of such State or who is neither an employee or legal representative of such agency, body, or commission nor a person described in subsection (n). However, such return information shall not be disclosed to the extent that the Secretary determines that such disclosure would identify a confidential informant or seriously impair any civil or criminal tax investigation.All this is part of the U.S. Code section that clearly states at its head:26 U.S. Code § 6103.Confidentiality and disclosure of returns and return informationSo, 26 U.S. Code 6103 recognizes that there must be a balance between confidentiality and disclosure.So, what arguments did Mr. Trump make in opposition to these requests:I’m the president so I can’t be investigated while I’m president.That Congress is using its disclosure power improperly.In order to rule in favour of Mr. Trump on #1, the Supreme Court would have to reverse itself on the leading case on the issueUnited States v. Nixon - WikipediaMoreover, it would have to go a lot further than that. In U.S. v. Nixon, Nixon was claiming unassailable executive privilege on documents created while he was acting as president of the United States. That’s not the case here. The tax records in question are with respect to him as a private citizen.In addition, the documents Congress are seeking are already in the possession of the IRS. This is neither a “search” nor a “seizure” in any meaningful sense of the word. Moreover, disclosing to the committee does not mean they become public. If anyone on the committee discloses them, that’s a federal offence and they can be prosecuted.So the Supreme Court will be treading on dangerous ground if it overturns these decisions because it essentially means that Congress can be stripped of most of its oversight powers, which under U.S. constitutional law is generally considered to be a “political question”. In fact, there are lots of laws that require U.S government employees to hand over information to congress. If the Supreme Court upholds the refusal of the IRS director, then any director can do the same thing without consequences.In fact, in U.S. v. Nixon, all the court did was say that if Nixon wanted executive privilege he had to hand the tapes over to the court to see if they were covered. As he well knew, they weren’t - the tapes revealed that he was involved in a criminal conspiracy.