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FTSE 100 INDEX 7155.38 -3.BY JEFF STEIN
AND TOM HAMBURGERThe Treasury Department’s
acting inspector general has
opened a review into whether the
Trump administration acted im-
properly during its ongoing fight
with House Democrats over re-
leasing President Trump’s tax re-
turns.
Treasury Secretary Steven
Mnuchin has refused to comply
with a request from House Ways
and Means Committee Chairman
Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.) for six
years of the president’s business
and financial returns. Democrats
have said a 1924 law explicitly
gives them the authority to re-
quest the documents, but
Mnuchin has denied the request,
and now the matter is pending in
federal court.
A focus of the fight is the
mandatory audit program that
the Internal Revenue Service
conducts on the president’s and
vice president’s tax returns.
Trump has steadfastly refused to
reveal any details of his tax fil-
ings. He has claimed the tax
filings have been under audit for
many years, but he has not pro-
vided information to corroborate
that claim.
Still, as president, his tax re-
turns are supposed to be auto-
matically audited by the IRS.
As the fight over whether to
release his tax returns to Con-
gress has intensified, an IRS
whistleblower in July filed a com-
plaint with lawmakers and re-
layed concerns that at least one
Treasury Department official at-tempted to interfere in the audit
process.
On Monday, Neal sent a letter
to Richard Delmar, Treasury’s
acting inspector general, and
asked for a review.
“I want to be assured that
Treasury, including the [IRS], is
enforcing the law in a fair and
impartial manner and no one is
endeavoring to intimidate or im-
pede government officials and
employees carrying out their du-
ties,” Neal wrote in the letter.
Asked whether the inquiry en-
compassed the whistleblower
complaint, Delmar in a brief in-
terview referred instead to Neal’s
letter and said it would focus on
matters the lawmaker raised.
“Chairman Neal has asked
Treasury OIG to inquire into the
process by which the Department
received, evaluated, and respond-
ed to the Committee’s request for
federal tax information,” Delmar
said in a statement. “We areundertaking that inquiry.”
The Treasury Department has
two inspectors general. Treasury
Inspector General for Tax Admin-
istration, a separate office, has
declined to comment on whether
it has opened an inquiry into thewhistleblower’s complaint.
Trump has broken decades of
precedent by refusing to reveal
his tax returns. He has given a
variety of explanations as to why
he won’t make them public, say-
ing that they are under audit orthat they are too complicated for
people to understand.
Democrats have filed suit
against the Treasury Depart-
ment, alleging Trump’s tax re-
turns must be turned over under
federal law.Last month, the Justice De-
partment urged a federal judge to
throw out the suit, saying the
federal court lacked jurisdiction
under the Constitution to hear
the case.
“For nearly two hundred years,the Legislative Branch never in-
voked the power of the Judiciary
to decide which side should win
in a political battle with the
Executive,” Justice Department
lawyers argued in the filing.
Neal had previously argued in
a court filing that the Treasury
Department, in refusing to turn
over the tax returns, had “mount-
ed an extraordinary attack on the
authority of Congress to obtain
information needed to conduct
oversight of Treasury, the IRS,
and the tax laws on behalf of the
American people who participate
in the Nation’s voluntary tax sys-
tem.”
There is little precedent for the
Treasury Department to deny a
congressional request for tax re-
turns, but there is also little
precedent for a House chairman
to demand the tax returns of a
president.
[email protected]
[email protected]Treasury Dept.’s inspector general to review handling of Trump’s tax returns
BY MARIE C. BACASome people would rather put
a broken Q-Tip in their ear, while
others would prefer a bulky ear-
plug or a mint candy the size of a
coin.
That’s essentially the choice
consumers have as tech compa-
nies including Microsoft, Amazon
and Samsung introduce a wave of
new, often oddly shaped, competi-
tors to the AirPods, Apple’s popu-
lar in-ear wireless headphones
that start at $159.
Silicon Valley has long been on
the cutting edge of aesthetics,
with numerous game-changing
designs over the years (such as the
Apple products released under
Steve Jobs’s tenure) as well as
some memorable misses (Google
Glass). And although Apple has
succeeded in turning its white,
dangly AirPods into a status sym-
bol, truly wireless ear buds are
gaining popularity despite, not
because of, their design.
To the credit of those compa-
nies, product design experts say it
is difficult to create a pair of
wireless, Bluetooth-enabled de-
vices that sit comfortably but un-
obtrusively in the ear, provide
high-quality sound and still cap-
ture the user’s voice. For one
thing, the human body interferes
with Bluetooth signals, so trans-
mitting information to both ear
buds in a synchronized fashion is
complicated.
The newest devices to enter the
fray are Microsoft’s Surface Ear-
buds, which the company un-
veiled this week at an event. The
ear buds have both touch and
voice controls and retail for $249.
The most visible part of each bud
is a flat white disc that measures
slightly less than an inch in diam-
eter, about the size of a quarter.
Last week, Amazon announced
its $129.99 Echo Buds, which are
black, resemble round earplugs
and are also about the size of a
quarter. Visually, they are similar
to Samsung’s equally priced Gal-
axy Buds. The Galaxy Buds are
available in black, white and yel-
low and debuted in February.
None of the devices has es-
caped the wrath of social media.
When they were introduced, Air-
Pods were the butt of many a
Twitter joke, and the devices have
since been compared to Q-Tips,
corncob holders and “an angry
praying mantis.” Only after com-
petitors were introduced did they
seem streamlined in comparison.
The Surface Earbuds were vari-
ously described online this week
as refrigerator magnets. They
were also likened to the mint
candy Mentos and ear gauges.
“So Apple ear buds look like
cigarettes hanging out of your
ears while Surface ear buds look
like you’ve been tagged as a part of
an animal migration experiment,”
tweeted Kevin Giszewski, a soft-
ware engineer and podcaster.Apple, Samsung and Microsoft
did not respond to requests for
comment. Amazon declined to
comment. (Amazon founder and
chief executive Jeff Bezos ownsThe Washington Post.)
Other tech companies have fol-
lowed Apple’s lead, in part, be-
cause ear buds have become big
business for the company. Al-though Apple does not disclose
AirPods sales, Wedbush Securi-
ties analyst Daniel Ives estimates
that the company will sell be-
tween 55 and 60 million AirPodsthis year, the equivalent of about
$9 billion in revenue. That’s an
important source of income as
consumer interest in the iPhone
wanes and the global smartphone
market begins to slow.
In addition to seeing wireless
ear buds as a cash cow, companies
also view the devices as a path to
lock consumers into their product
and service ecosystem. They also
see it as a way to bring digital
assistants such as Apple’s Siri and
Amazon’s Alexa into the user’s
broader world.
For instance, Microsoft’s Sur-
face Earbuds allow users to open
their Outlook email and calendars
with their voice and instantly
stream music by triple-clicking
either bud. Consumers can also
use the ear buds to interact with
their PowerPoint presentations.
Ives said there is a small win-
dow for other earbud manufac-
turers to encroach on Apple’s mar-
ket dominance before the third-
generation AirPods are released,
which Ives says is likely to happen
in early to mid-December. The
market penetration for wireless
headphones is only 10 to 12 per-
cent, according to Ives, so al-
though it would be difficult for
anyone to make a dent in Apple’s
market share, tech companies are
still trying.
“Right now it’s an all-out as-
sault,” Ives said. “These are really
aggressive moves by competitors.”
[email protected]AirPods rivals give consumers an earful as they try to catch up to Apple
MARK LENNIHAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Microsoft’s Robin Seiler, the vice president of program management and devices, discusses the new
Surface Earbuds in New York. The company unveiled the $249 voice-controlled device on Wednesday.Chairman of Ways and
Means Committee sent
letter asking for inquiry“I want to be assured that Treasury... is enforcing
the law in a fair and impartial manner and no one
is endeavoring to intimidate or impede government
officials and employees carrying out their duties.”
Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.), House Ways and Means Committee chairman