In the scheme of things, most people are only able to view their own personal income tax returns and do not have the legal right to view another person's income tax return. Perhaps that is a good thing, but in actuality, the more private and the more secretive, important things such as taxes are, the more such is susceptible to being abused or taken advantage of, in which, some are able to benefit greatly by convoluted tax laws, tax privileges, as well as tax set asides, whereas other people suffer through simply paying what they believe to be what their fair obligation requires of them in order for us to thereby have a civil society.
At an absolute minimum, all public corporations that have gross sales of $100 million or more should be required to, by law, to disclose publically their complete tax return, available online, for anyone, or any organization to look at and to study at their leisure. This would in itself, be a great step forward in allowing Americans to truly begin to understand and to comprehend exactly how much real tax burden these behemoth corporations are actually taking upon their shoulders so as to thereby fairly bear their share of the tax burden on behalf of the society that actuates them, as compared to how much in taxes that they are able to circumvent through various machinations.
By making corporate income taxes public, this would be the first necessary step to take in order for the tax code to be modified in a manner in which certain loopholes and advantages that far too many corporations have had the audacity to deliberately take advantage of, be shutdown and eliminated. That is to say, public corporations often talk a really good game, but far too many of these institutions, don't back up their talk with paying their fair share of taxes, but rather, through their sheer size, and with their top of the line legal and accounting teams, do everything within their power, to not pay their appropriate share of taxes.
As for individual tax returns, those with income above $500,000, should be required by law to have their tax returns disclosed in an online form to the public, with their real name so identified, but with all identifying aspects of account numbers, social security numbers, and other pertinent information that could compromise their fair privacy, redacted. It must be said, that It is absolutely vital that the actual names of the taxpayers be disclosed, and thereby how much or how little these high earning citizens are paying in taxes, so that fellow Americans could thereby determine as to whether or not, the tax code as implemented, is truly progressive, or merely takes on the guise of being so.
For an absolute certainty, the more that income tax returns become public knowledge, the more that the general public will know as to how fair and how well the current progressive income tax actually works. So then, in recognition that the whole point of the progressive income tax is to provide for the necessary and good welfare of the nation, it is important for the public to really know as to whether those that profess that they are doing their part -- actually are.