NYT Digs up 20+ Years of Tax Dirt on Trump (chairman, England, legal)
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Assuming that what he was doing was legal, it begs further questions about his self-proclaimed success as a businessman no?
Pretty much.
He is either very successful and lying to the government about his losses, or he is very unsuccessful and lying to the banks and the American people about that.
WE already know he lies about the value of his properties.
Understating them for tax purposes.
Overstating them for bank loan and insurance purposes.
They should match, but they don't. So he is either committing tax fraud, or insurance fraud plus bank fraud.
We know he is capable of lying. He told us all the lie that he built his fortune out of a 1 million dollar loan 'from his father'. I know he said this because when I had discussions with Trumpie co-workers they were adamant "he was a self-made man" ... Trump supporters absolutely believed that in 2016.
Now we know that he was a millionaire by age eight, thanks to daddy, and that Trump and his siblings set up shell companies to 'sell' services and products to daddy's properties at exorbitant rates (a way of transferring multiple millions of dollars in wealth to avoid the gift tax and inheritance tax) ... and eventually inheriting another 400 million dollars from daddy Fred upon the elder's demise!
Yet he claimed, and Trumpies believed, that he made his 'fortune' himself based upon a single one million dollar loan. They believed he was a business genius and they wanted that genius running our country.
Now according to his own tax records he has lost more money ... daddy's money, other people's money ... than any other person alive in America today. Possibly more than any other person in American history.
He still poops into a gold plated toilet bowl though ... living pretty good for a guy who claims to lose money every year on his tax returns.
Trump can say the NYT is fake news, but usually they are right. He on the other hand, has no credibility, but that doesn't matter to his supporters. My bet is that the IRS is scouring their databases to see who has touched his tax records, if that is where they came from.
The IRS says they have already reviewed their procedures/safeguards and found nothing wrong. They have asked the Treasury Inspector General to review them as well and confirm their findings.
I will be very surprised if they came from the IRS.
More likely imo is an employee or former employee at the accounting firm that prepared them or a bank who was given the information.
The IRS says they have already reviewed their procedures/safeguards and found nothing wrong. They have asked the Treasury Inspector General to review them as well and confirm their findings.
I will be very surprised if they came from the IRS.
More likely imo is an employee or former employee at the accounting firm that prepared them or a bank who was given the information.
There's also the assumption that they are actually his returns. That's not certain at all.
Agreed. It could also be someone who has copies of some parts of the return and some knowledge of what else is contained in the returns. In that case, my money would be on Michael Cohen and make the info provided the NYT highly suspect.
His story that Trump waved around a paper 10 million dollar refund check while saying how stupid the IRS was to send it to him is simply not believable. Who has a paper check for that amount sent to them rather than direct deposited?
Assuming that what he was doing was legal, it begs further questions about his self-proclaimed success as a businessman no?
not necessarily at all.
Real estate is his business. Real estate is well-known to be great as a tax shelter.
You can "make" $5MM in cash flow and write off $6MM in depreciation* and it shows as a $1MM loss for taxes. You got $5MM. You got to take the $1MM and apply it future obligations. And the next year, your picture is probably still the same. You make $5M, write off $6M and get a $1M credit.
Obama changed the rule in 2010 (?) where those loss carryforwards went from 2 years to 4 years. So, let's say the next year you actually made (after depreciation) $300K, and $400K the following year. You could write off the $300K in yr 1 and $400K in year 2 ... but you left $300K (1MM-700K) "on the table". Switch that to 4 years, and you keep using the writeoff.
*depreciation - let me give you a great example. He spent $200MM refurbishing Doral. If all of that was hotel furniture, carpet, paint, new restaurant equipment, etc ... that's depreciated over 5 years even though you might not replace it for 10 years. So the first 5 years you're getting a $40MM deduction and then the next 5 you don't.
Kudos to Don for having smart accountants - he is an incredibly savvy and charismatic businessman.
But oh the Libs will cry!!!
Excellent accountants are the mainstay of the rich. I'm sure Gates and Bozo employ the same type of accountants, who figure out how to pay the least amount of tax to the government. Amazon and Netflix went years without paying taxes. Not surprised that the liberal media didn't mention that "income" is the number you pay the IRS. Trump's financial manager has everything owned by Trump's businesses. He has donated his salary from being President the past four years. In business there are write-offs, capital losses, depreciation, etc.
He is either very successful and lying to the government about his losses, or he is very unsuccessful and lying to the banks and the American people about that.
see above.
Quote:
WE already know he lies about the value of his properties.
Understating them for tax purposes.
Overstating them for bank loan and insurance purposes.
They should match, but they don't. So he is either committing tax fraud, or insurance fraud plus bank fraud.
you really don't know what you're talking about here. Let's make it simple for us as consumers:
If you own a home, would you sell it for the tax value?
When you bought your home or refinanced it, or later got a HELOC - did the Bank get an appraisal? Or just take your word for it?
When you got that mortgage - did they require financial docs to prove the ability to repay (paychecks/W2's/bank account statements)?
When you get homeowner's insurance, are you aware there's nothing for the land, and you either get replacement value coverage (they pay the bills to make your home new but like it was) or they use standard charts to calculate the cost to replace and that's your coverage?
You can't own a mobile home and insure it for $1MM, have it burn down and rebuild a mansion.
Quote:
We know he is capable of lying. He told us all the lie that he built his fortune out of a 1 million dollar loan 'from his father'. ... Trump supporters absolutely believed that in 2016.Yet he claimed, and Trumpies believed, that he made his 'fortune' himself based upon a single one million dollar loan. They believed he was a business genius and they wanted that genius running our country.
I don't remember that poll question "Do you support Trump because he's a self-made man?" Maybe there were a bunch of Apprentice watchers who believed he was self-made; I don't know I never watched an episode.
Quote:
...Trump and his siblings set up shell companies to 'sell' services and products to daddy's properties at exorbitant rates (a way of transferring multiple millions of dollars in wealth to avoid the gift tax and inheritance tax) ... and eventually inheriting another 400 million dollars from daddy Fred upon the elder's demise!
and so in theory, those shell companies made a lot of money and paid a lot in taxes, or the kids paid taxes from their exorbitant salaries.
Quote:
Now according to his own tax records he has lost more money ... daddy's money, other people's money ... than any other person alive in America today. Possibly more than any other person in American history.... living pretty good for a guy who claims to lose money every year on his tax returns.
Go back once again to my prior post about whether he "lost money" or not. There's a $900MM total # floated from the 80's/90's but a lot of that could be paper (non-cash). We do know Solyndra lost $500M+ of our money plus whatever other investors lost.
And BTW, he also paid taxes 5 of those 15 years the NYT claims to have seen all of. Interestingly, they have not bothered to tell us about those 5 years or the NET of all 15 years.
If the NYT posted false information about Trump he could sue them for millions for libel and defamation. I haven’t even heard him threaten with a law suit. One of the most litigious people in history and yet this “lying” news publication gets off the hook? Why? Unless....gasp. Because what they reported is factual.
Real estate is his business. Real estate is well-known to be great as a tax shelter.
You can "make" $5MM in cash flow and write off $6MM in depreciation* and it shows as a $1MM loss for taxes. You got $5MM. You got to take the $1MM and apply it future obligations. And the next year, your picture is probably still the same. You make $5M, write off $6M and get a $1M credit.
Obama changed the rule in 2010 (?) where those loss carryforwards went from 2 years to 4 years. So, let's say the next year you actually made (after depreciation) $300K, and $400K the following year. You could write off the $300K in yr 1 and $400K in year 2 ... but you left $300K (1MM-700K) "on the table". Switch that to 4 years, and you keep using the writeoff.
*depreciation - let me give you a great example. He spent $200MM refurbishing Doral. If all of that was hotel furniture, carpet, paint, new restaurant equipment, etc ... that's depreciated over 5 years even though you might not replace it for 10 years. So the first 5 years you're getting a $40MM deduction and then the next 5 you don't.
There are definitely ways to get tax breaks but he was also making hundreds of millions for The Apprentice and has had several other business ventures outside of real estate (Trump University, Miss America pageant, etc.) The fact that he had so many revenue sources and yet was still declaring huge losses is not what I would call typical or expected for a billionaire who constantly totes their business acumen.
I think you’re being overly generous here by shrugging this off as normal business practices and giving the guy a full pass.
He is either very successful and lying to the government about his losses, or he is very unsuccessful and lying to the banks and the American people about that.
WE already know he lies about the value of his properties.
Understating them for tax purposes.
Overstating them for bank loan and insurance purposes.
They should match, but they don't. So he is either committing tax fraud, or insurance fraud plus bank fraud.
We know he is capable of lying. He told us all the lie that he built his fortune out of a 1 million dollar loan 'from his father'. I know he said this because when I had discussions with Trumpie co-workers they were adamant "he was a self-made man" ... Trump supporters absolutely believed that in 2016.
Now we know that he was a millionaire by age eight, thanks to daddy, and that Trump and his siblings set up shell companies to 'sell' services and products to daddy's properties at exorbitant rates (a way of transferring multiple millions of dollars in wealth to avoid the gift tax and inheritance tax) ... and eventually inheriting another 400 million dollars from daddy Fred upon the elder's demise!
Yet he claimed, and Trumpies believed, that he made his 'fortune' himself based upon a single one million dollar loan. They believed he was a business genius and they wanted that genius running our country.
Now according to his own tax records he has lost more money ... daddy's money, other people's money ... than any other person alive in America today. Possibly more than any other person in American history.
He still poops into a gold plated toilet bowl though ... living pretty good for a guy who claims to lose money every year on his tax returns.
Yep, this is our president, the lying tax fraud.
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