I know you are all shocked:
Donald J. Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750.
He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.
As the president wages a re-election campaign that polls say he is in danger of losing, his finances are under stress, beset by losses and hundreds of millions of dollars in debt coming due that he has personally guaranteed. Also hanging over him is a decade-long audit battle with the Internal Revenue Service over the legitimacy of a $72.9 million tax refund that he claimed, and received, after declaring huge losses. An adverse ruling could cost him more than $100 million.
The tax returns that Mr. Trump has long fought to keep private tell a story fundamentally different from the one he has sold to the American public. His reports to the I.R.S. portray a businessman who takes in hundreds of millions of dollars a year yet racks up chronic losses that he aggressively employs to avoid paying taxes. Now, with his financial challenges mounting, the records show that he depends more and more on making money from businesses that put him in potential and often direct conflict of interest with his job as president.
The New York Times has obtained tax-return data extending over more than two decades for Mr. Trump and the hundreds of companies that make up his business organization, including detailed information from his first two years in office. It does not include his personal returns for 2018 or 2019. This article offers an overview of The Times’s findings; additional articles will be published in the coming weeks.
Biden should be able to provoke a meltdown in the debates over this.
MomSense
Holy shit. Back in 2016 I joked that if we got Sanders’ and Trump’s tax returns we’d find out Sanders had more money.
Another Scott
No clicks for me to give FTFNYT, but I’m confused. They don’t have his returns for 2018 and 2019, but they know that he only paid $750 in each year?
How?
Did something get garbled?
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
donnah
As always, the first headlines sound damning. Trump’s taxes have been a holy grail for Democrats hoping to catch him in illegal criminal acts. No one wants him to be found guilty of tax evasion/fraud more than I, but he’s always had teams of lawyers and experts to cover him, so I’m going to say “yay” for now, but wait for what happens next.
WaterGirl
I have been talking to myself about this in a previous thread. More excerpts: (bolding mine)
…..
…..
…..
Litlebritdifrnt
He is broke. The fantasy that he is a billionaire is a joke.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: $750 the year Trump won, and $750 his first year in the White House.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott:
WaterGirl
@Litlebritdifrnt: We knew it, but maybe, just maybe, now some of his supporters who like him because “he’s a successful businessman” may see the light.
Sasha
“I’m Donald Trump. I’m not a billionaire or a genius businessman, but I pay one on TV.”
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: Ah, ok thanks.
We all know that his business records are as crooked as Lombard Street. $750 is probably the minimum he can get away with owing without triggering an automatic audit, or something.
Remember the story in Spy magazine about him endorsing checks for $0.06 or some ridiculously small amount, just to hoover up every possible penny…
Cheers,
Scott.
MattF
Jeffro
Right on time! ;)
Great job, Deep State!!
Let’s plow this MF right into the ground 11/3
WaterGirl
@MattF: Sadly, the articles says it doesn’t shed any light on his dealings with Russia.
RSA
When was the last time you paid as little as $750 in federal income tax? For me it was when I was working part-time jobs in high school and college.
Jim Appleton
@WaterGirl:
Or they’ll say cheating is smart, socialism is for morans.
WaterGirl
This article makes me happy on an otherwise kind of shitty day.
Baud
Seems like LP could do something with this.
WaterGirl
@Jim Appleton: Could be. But maybe some of them will be pissed that they were taken for a ride.
opiejeanne
How did the FTFNYT get these tax records?
LuciaMia
And now hes on CNN live, blithering about… what? Oh, Hunter Biden, of course!
Mousebumples
1) Raise your hand if you paid more in taxes than Trump for 2016 and 2017. *raises hand*
2) The most likely fraud, so far as I’ve heard, would be were he to report different income or earnings on, say, loan applications.
If they are different (and this is speculation only at this point), which one is accurate?
3) If/When we get back control of Congress and the White House, can we PLEASE up the funding for White Collar Crime investigations?
WaterGirl
@Baud: My prediction is that we see something by 7pm Eastern.
edit: This is better left to the Lincoln Project, I think, as opposed to the Biden campaign.
Mary G
Borrowed the housemate’s PC to read it. Looks like Ivanka got a lot:
I am not a CPA or lawyer, but it seems it this might be a problem:
HinTN
@WaterGirl: Not a chance. They’ll pivot to “he’s successful at poking his finger in the eye of the (gummint) man” because deep down inside he says what they want to say about the “other” people.
WaterGirl
@Mousebumples: If we followed up on white collar crime, that might bring in enough to fund the government. And it would certainly save a lot of little people from losing their shirts because of white collar schemes.
Mousebumples
@opiejeanne: They didn’t specify their source(s), other than saying it was legal.
So… Melania? *shrugs
Morzer
Well, now you know why Trump has been so desperate to appease Putin. Putin holds his markers for all those millions of dollars of Russian mafia money funneled through the Trump Crime Organization. Why has Trump grovelled to authoritarians? Because they could give him a little something to keep him afloat. Never enough to let him clear his debts – that would be naive – but enough to keep him groping for more.
mrmoshpotato
@MattF: Yes. We know he’s a Soviet shitpile mobster conman, but not how much of a Soviet shitpile mobster conman.
Jim Appleton
@Sasha:
“pay one ..”
Could be a typo. If so, it’s a Freudian slap.
WaterGirl
@HinTN: You may be right, but I will hold on to my hope for a little while longer.
germy
Good thing the leakers didn’t send the documents to Glenn Greenwald.
Morzer
@Mousebumples: That’s going to be the Hand Raise seen from outer space.
Raoul Paste
One of his lawyers is apparently claiming this is all fake news
Denying reality is all they have left but this will work with a good fraction of the Fox rubes
Mousebumples
@WaterGirl: yup. That and a billionaire tax should help a lot. And reverting the Trump Tax Cut.
Baud
@WaterGirl: Agreed. Biden can talk about the unfairness to average taxpayers.
WaterGirl
@opiejeanne: They do not say.
Baud
@Raoul Paste: They can prove it by releasing the returns.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
Presactly.
Mary G
germy
Baud
I like when we nominate white male candidates. Everyone reacts … differently.
LuciaMia
@HinTN: Or, he lost money sacrificing himself as being POTUS and defending the Constitution. Hes a hero!
Marcopolo
From Max Kennerly:
Federal income taxes paid in 2017 (jointly with spouse):
Joe Biden – $3,742,974
Kamala Harris – $516,469
Bernie Sanders – $343,882
Elizabeth Warren – $268,484
Donald Trump – $750
See, the problem with Democrats is they actually want to fund government..
Also, WTF kind of debt juggling act would one have to engage in to repeatedly report losing money across a wide range of businesses (including pumping millions more in annually) without having to go the person bankruptcy route. Are Trump’s assets actually valued at more than his liability/loses. Inquiring minds want to know.
Jim Appleton
@WaterGirl:
Could be. I’m skeptical that anyone who bought his Apprentice shtick is capable of that kind of awareness. Would love love love to be surprised, and this is not meant to jackal you.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I guess the audit must be over. //
Wyatt Salamanca
Good job by these NY Times reporters, but how much will this latest information move the needle with the goddamn fucking morons that keep showing up at these stupid campaign rallies?
If we lived in a sane society, Trump’s poll numbers would have crashed and burned after the release of the audiotape conversations with Bob Woodward.
Morzer
@Mary G: Deutsche Bank is the most corrupt and opaque of the European big banks and has extensive ties to Putin’s regime.
Raoul Paste
@Baud: Exactly, just like he can prove his innocence on the rape charge by supplying that DNA sample
David Anderson
@RSA: 1995, I worked as a city lifeguard at McPherson Pool for 36 hours/week for 10 weeks at $7.50/hr. I had off the book refereeing income and some paper route income covering for my sisters.
1996 I had enough on the book income to owe a good amount to me in taxes.
Mary G
Baud
@Mary G:
Small might get us an extra Senator or two.
Morzer
@LuciaMia: In fact, Trump was such a hero that he lost money even before becoming POTUS. He even bankrupted his own casino – four times. Bankruptcies were his Purple Hearts earned in the service of the American people…
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
They have taken notice.
Brachiator
People would applaud Trump for this. No one has an obligation to pay taxes if they can legally reduce their tax liability. This applies to the wealthy as much as to anyone else. Trump has obviously been working the shit out of net operating losses.
So, if he earns millions and uses losses to protect those millions, his base and some others will shrug their shoulders. Of course, they have to jump through some hoops to justify their belief that Trump is a “great” business genius, but they have been dancing for him for years now.
This is a lot more serious. And this might hurt Trump with people who are still on the fence. Trump true believers will shrug it off. They don’t care about Trump criminality. They are all in.
ETA: one of the fantasies that I dismiss is that Trump is a brilliant businessman who employs brilliant CPAs to find all the right deductions. More likely, Trump and his cronies bribe legislators and hire lobbyists who help write tax laws that benefit the plutocrats.. You don’t need to look for loopholes when you have people creating them for you.
Mary G
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
We don’t need all of them.
Ken
Will we be able to tell by what happens when he fails to make the payments? Novichok if he was high up, a fall out of a window if not that important?
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: I don’t get that, there must be in reference to a movie I have not seen?
HinTN
@WaterGirl:
“Hope Springs a Turtle” – such a long time ago.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
inorite
Zzyzx
@Wyatt Salamanca: it’s not about moving the needle as much as preventing Trump from gaining ground. Every week things are going poorly for him is a good thing.
Baud
@zhena gogolia: We don’t need any of them. We just need them to stay home.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Mary G:
True, but I imagine this story will he picked up by a myriad of other outlets
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Litlebritdifrnt:
“He’s a shrewd business guy who lives off of other people’s money and is brilliant in avoiding taxes. This is the sort of businessman/politician I can support.”
– My Parents, 3/4 of My Extended Family and 80% of my Facebook Friends
Baud
@Goku (Amerikan Baka):
I bet the Today show covers it tomorrow.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
It’s just a gif of John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. I think it’s meant to signify “there’s nothing in his wallet.”
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
“I want to be him.”
Morzer
@Ken: “Mr. Trump had long been an enthusiastic practitioner of parkour and simply mistimed his leap from the top of the Empire State Building…”
Mary G
Another Scott
That’s just how smart people play the game, amirite??!!1
Grrr…
(via Popehat)
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: ah, thank you. Did not see that movie.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
I think it was remarked upon in an earlier thread that the race has remained incredibly stable with Biden ahead nationally and in the battleground states he needs to win the EC. The Supreme Court pick hasn’t seemed to have benefited him with voters, at least not yet. I remember reading here that his numbers with evangelicals were slumping
Kathleen
@WaterGirl: Silly me, but I was surprised that Trump’s stiffing his vendors/contractors didn’t get much attention. I would think if nothing else bankrupting small businesses because he stiffed them would have alienated “Real Middle Class White Voters”.
Omnes Omnibus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Get new friends.
Mary G
zhena gogolia
I know everyone is going to scoff at me, but I’m old enough to remember Watergate. This kind of has that feel to it (Martha Mitchell on the phone, etc., etc.). I had forgotten what it felt like, but it just flashed on me that it felt like this.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
I don’t know. I’ve given up thinking there’s going to be a “thing” that causes a major change in how people are going to vote. I’m ok with just trying to chip away at it. If something better happens, it happens.
Marcopolo
Not gonna post any ActBlue links but in honor of Trump’s 2016 & 2017 tax bills a number of campaigns are now doing contribute $750, $75, or $7.50 fund raising appeals. If that’s the kind of gesture that will make your day, go to it.
Baud
@Marcopolo:
Haha. Good on those campaigns. That’s great.
Brachiator
@Zzyzx:
Very true. Trump’s attempts at attack are not getting as much play as previously.
Trump was better at campaigning as a challenger than as an incumbent. He can’t really stand on his awful record.
But it is troubling that he is so blatantly misusing the power of his office to try to steal the election. It’s his only play.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
That uttered statement usually comes from the grizzled face of an underemployed and motivation ally challenged while guy over 45.
Mary G
Marcopolo
@Brachiator:
Senator/Professor Warren had a long riff about this “tilting” of the playing field & how it adds up over the course of a few decades.
mrmoshpotato
@Mary G: Someone needs to go begging his Trump trash supporters for money – again.
LuciaMia
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: In other words, a leech. And a man who produces and creates nothing.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
If I kick my older relatives, older lawyers and older church types off, the ratio is much better.
Marcopolo
Before I go to dinner I just want to add that this is yet another thing that Hillary nailed in 2016 (clip from the first debate):
And:
johnnybuck
@Wyatt Salamanca: Was anybody really shocked by Woodward’s book though? Is anybody really shocked by this story? We knew he was broke, we knew he knew how dangerous the virus was.
After the Access Hollywood tape everybody knew.
Baud
@Marcopolo:
She was right about so many things.
Morzer
@LuciaMia: A moocher and looter, in other words. A man who “didn’t build that”.
Gravenstone
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: In other words, a parasite.
Baud
@johnnybuck:
Most people aren’t paying attention as much as we are.
germy
johnnybuck
@Baud: I think people know intrinsically who Donald Trump is was the point I was trying to make. They were never conned, they jusy didn’t give a fuck.
Princess
If this is all “fake news” Trump has a simple way to prove it. He can release his tax returns, like every other presidential candidate. Anyone who tells you it is fake, ask them why he hasn’t released his returns to prove it to us all.
JPL
@Marcopolo: omg that is perfect
Morzer
@Baud: True, but these things all circulate through social media and add to the overall impression people have of things. Every day that Trump has to deny that he’s a bankrupt fraudster is a day that he can’t do anything to change the narrative – not that he was doing much of a job of that on his “best” days.
Baud
@Morzer:
I agree. I was just pointing out that most people don’t know what we know, so this will be news to them.
Emma from FL
Jesus Christ. Here we go again. “Nothing will change.” “They’ll just say he was a good businessman.” Blah, blah, blah.
Look, we know, ok? Trumpists are gonna Trump. But there might be a small but significant number of people that will look at their own taxes and go “huh? mine have gone up for three years in a row and his get smaller?” Or “I got caught by the IRS and I’m still paying the bill, dammit.” Or better yet “I pay taxes so his lazy kids can keep sponging off us?”
Take your eyes off the irredeemable 27% and the single-issue 8%. We’re fishing in the deep and narrow water of the 5% that can be moved.
germy
The Great Man responds: “It’s fake news.”
germy
Baud
@johnnybuck:
There are many facets the Trump’s horribleness. Not everyone appreciates all of them. I don’t think this will move the needle significantly, but it’ll turn some people off, and help maximize our wins.
Brachiator
@zhena gogolia:
No scoffing from here.
Some of those days were wild. But they were also a time when the press briefly shook off its laziness and complacency and took on the White House.
Emma from FL
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: No offense, but get the hell out of that swamp, for the sake of your health.
Morzer
@Baud: You know, if we are going to run you in 2028, you really do need to work on bankrupting at least one business, preferably two.
Baud
@Morzer:
I’ve been working on Balloon Juice for a while.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Total loser!
Sad!
Omnes Omnibus
Or the employee truck driver who, thanks to “tax reform” can no longer deduction any of their expenses from being on the road and now owes $5K instead of getting a modest refund. The job, income, and expenses didn’t change but the taxes did. Yeah, that guy isn’t going to like Trump too much.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Lure away all the front pagers with Baud! bucks!
Deer for everyone!
Baud
@germy:
I would think that people who juice are mostly pro-Trump. An own goal on Trump’s part.
Baud
Brachiator
@Marcopolo:
Trump has had his share of business bankruptcies.
Again, Trump supporters don’t care or don’t understand how this undermines Trump’s claims to be a master businessman.
Ken
Any word yet on who leaked the tax information? Is there someone with access to his corporate tax records who, say, is under investigation and might have done this to take some heat off himself, or as a way of distracting investigators, or because he’s
a Trumpan idiot?Mary G
More on the “consultant’s” fees apparently routed to Ivanka – people who worked on two projects say there weren’t any consultants:
Daddy’s little girl got some ‘splaining to do. I wonder if Uday and Qusay knew she was getting more than them?
oatler.
The base calls it:
Trump a tax criminal +0
Amy Coney Barrett +1000
Brachiator
@Omnes Omnibus:
Strangely, a number of taxpayers don’t connect the dots that lead back to Trump. They stop at blaming the IRS, and not the GOP Congress and Trump, who are responsible for the new tax laws.
And hell, even some business reporters omitted or downplayed how the Democrats were totally excluded from any participation or discussion in the drafting the new tax law, but were then expected to vote for it in the name of bipartisanship.
cain
@Raoul Paste:
Make him say it under oath – and then have the IRS verify the claims. If they yes it is the same then throw this lawyer in jail – getting rid of some of his counsel people will make him a sitting duck.
Mary G
@Ken: Dean Baquet has a editor’s side piece up saying they won’t reveal their sources, but the information was obtained legally. Third Lady jumping ship because she wants in on a book deal telling all now that hubs is in hot water and likely to lose big Nov. 3?
cain
yeah…
frosty
@zhena gogolia: I had the same feeling last October. Can’t remember what the news was, but I emailed a friend that it felt like when the dam broke for Watergate. I need to send her an apology I guess.
counterfactual
While we’re talking about how this news is received by voters, I’m interested in how it’s received by Donnie’s creditors.
ema
@Another Scott:
Since this is an official disclosure, isn’t there a legal requirement for the information to be accurate?
L85NJGT
@Mary G:
Rudy should have retired to Florida. He’d be bumming around beachie bars, regaling them with endless tales of 9/11 for free drinks.
zhena gogolia
@frosty:
Well, I’ve resisted it up to now. But this feels huge.
Jeffro
Just like Fred trump did with trumpov!
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
Hah!
Jeffro
@Mary G: that’s a really good question!
Have at it, national snooze media!!
Jeffro
@germy: they need go no further than Don Jr’s statement that “they get all the financing they need out of Russia”.
It is and always was there, for those with eyes to see…
debbie
@Baud:
It will also occasion a certain amount of merriment.
clay
I was wondering when these things would leak. Frankly, I would have thought it would happen a long time ago, but perhaps they were timing it for maximum damage?
Where does the Times say it got them?
L85NJGT
@Mary G:
She’s got ice water in her veins. The two idiots look sick when they make them go in front of the public and lie for Daddy.
Kathleen
@Mary G: Nah, this is just the place holder story until they resurrect Hillary Clinton’s Emails – Part The Deaux. I think NYT political team is in withdrawal because they can’t find a reason to cite Hillary Clinton’s emails. I think that’s why they’ve been so testy on Twitter lately.
Jeffro
this is everything.
What’s he going to do? Pat himself on the back publicly for paying jack shit? He’s done that before but…$750??? Admit he sucks as a businessman? Explain how he’s going to pay off the $300M+ he owes, very soon?
Y’all want someone like that as president*, red America? Oooookay.
debbie
@Brachiator:
For businesses, he declares bankruptcy. For himself, he constructs net operating losses (are they still called that?). I don’t remember the year, but it got out that in a year when he filed a NOL of $90 billion, he reportedly paid himself $50 million.
Jeffro
@Baud: truth. The guy is already 8 points behind nationally, 6 points behind in the battleground states.
Kay
Biden’s tax returns are fairly simple.
I’m pleased they don’t inflate deductions. Pretty modest. They really could take more and be fine.
clay
@frosty: Last October would have been the Ukraine bribery scandal coming to light. And yeah, that was a big one. It got him impeached AND inoculated Joe Biden against a whole lot of bullshit.
frosty
@zhena gogolia: Hope you’re right! I’m not going to email my friends who aren’t paying Balloon Juice obsessive amounts of attention though.
I couldn’t survive this shitshow without everyone here.
Jeffro
@Emma from FL: amen
Bit by bit, 46% support for trumpov became 42% support, which is tens of millions of voters who flipped without ever having to enter a Midwestern diner.
I’ll say this for the (disgusting orange moron piece of shit) guy: he moved America off its 50-50 deadlock, that’s for sure.
Hey GOP tell you what: agree in writing now to abolish the Electoral College and we won’t make you walk coast to coast, tarred and feathered and hit with Cheeto dust, on or about Jan 20th 2021
Kay
It’s funny because I’ve suspected for a while they do the live events to funnel campaign dollars to his “businesses”. There’s something desperately revenue producing about that campaign- the constant demands for money, the hinky finance filings where it’s all weirdly round numbers or “99” to avoid additional reporting limits. The whole thing is a fiction.
frosty
@clay: Ah ha! Thanks, that was it. An impeachable offense, just like Watergate. Without the R senators who took their oaths seriously, dammit.
Nutmeg again (formerly MoxieM)
@WaterGirl: But evidently he’s paid taxes in Turkey & the Philippines for licensing and etc? Sketchy as hell. I mean, some of us knew that already, but maybe, just maybe, the info will penetrate some numbskulls.
Another Scott
@ema: Of course, but something something Article 2 says I can do anything I want something something, so pound sand.
Or, rules are for Democrats.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
JeffH
@Wyatt Salamanca: It’s not the hard core fans we can do anything about. It’s the “I’ve always voted Republican but am queasy about Trump” folks. We get 1 or 2 percent to switch, that could flip some states and maybe some downballot races.
Steeplejack
@Another Scott:
The “year he won the presidency” was 2016. His first year in office was 2017.
Feathers
Ouch. Someone on the Twitters just pointed out that over the last 15 years, Trump paid more for sex than he did in taxes. (@JJT1006)
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
ETA: Just making explicit what WaterGirl said.
Omnes Omnibus
@Feathers: ::shutters::
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
? Get new friends,
And trash the old,
One is toxic
And the other mould. ?
— Girl Scout camp song, updated
different-church-lady
See, this is all terribly fascinating: just the increase in my tax burden alone created by tax reform is 2/3rd’s of Trump’s entire tax bill.
different-church-lady
This also makes it quite clear that one return that was leaked a few years ago was leaked by Trump’s people: they leaked the one return where he paid big taxes.
Jim Appleton
@Kay:
This.
IDJT never wanted to be president, he wanted the grift of running, without planning for the indictments.
Once the fucking dog caught the tire, his MO has been all about hoovering up while hoping beyond hope that no one will notice he’s a fraud.
Fair Economist
@johnnybuck:
A lot of people *thought* it but we didn’t *know*. Median opinion was that he did have a lot of money, but a lot, lot less than the $10 billion he claimed.
Now we really *know* he’s broke.
Suzanne
I never really felt good about my financial acumen, but I am doing better than the president.
I am as cynical as they come about thinking that he really could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters….. but this seems like a big thing, right? I can’t tell anymore. I mean, to me, they all feel like big things. But…. this feels bonkers.
ema
@Another Scott:
Figures!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: I can’t keep track of it all– who can?– but isn’t there still an unaccounted for $20M from the inauguration fund? My personal hobby-horse is that’s how they paid off Melania
CCL
Looks as Sen Murphy, Booker, Schatz and crew have raised more than 235,000 for MJ in Texas this evening. Hope I did the embed correctly.
Casey Collins
Of course, we know businesses write off a lot of things, however, to pay $750 in income taxes at billionaire level, is absolutely unheard of. I personally, have been paying taxes on my earnings every year. I cannot deduct anything and pay what I deem a fair share or more of taxes both at the state and local level. (I make peanuts)
I almost considered voting to reelect him ONLY because he will be so disruptive if he does not win. I have changed my mind – I am not voting for him. period….nothing will change my mind. I am also afraid of the wake of his departure is going to look like the last recession – when Bush left. AND if he stays four more years imagine what the deficits will look like then….He is NOT a good businessman at all. Billionaires also have charitable foundations and give money away.
Suzanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Maybe this is why she felt so motivated to renegotiate her prenup. If she wasn’t wise, she’s going to be super-broke.
Another Scott
@ema: OpenSecrets has the forms for 2016. It looks like it’s form OGE 278e. The signature certifies it is complete and correct “to the best of my knowledge”. It doesn’t mention penalties.
Oh well.
Cheers,
Scott.
LongHairedWeirdo
Oh, dude, this is *TRUMP*. I don’t think any provocation will be necessary :-).
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: Maybe she released their tax returns.
tokyokie
@Fair Economist:
Of course, a lot of his “wealth” is derived from his absurd valuation of the Trump brand, when the actual value of his crap name has sunk to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
trnc
@Marcopolo:
I hope Joe does not miss the opportunity the Hillary did – namely, to say to DT, “Our military and first responders are paid from tax revenues. I’m proud to pay the taxes that support them. If you loved them as much as you say, you’d help pay for them. If everyone lied on their taxes like you do, we wouldn’t have a military.”
Burnspbesq
@Marcopolo:
‘it’s not unusual for well-managed commercial real estate to throw off excess deductions AND positive cash flow—for a while. But not indefinitely.
Groucho48
Bloomberg should buy up all Trump’s debt and tell Trump–pay up on time or I’ll take everything you own. Or, resign, now, and the debt will go away.
Aleta
The people telling us about Barrett’s “brilliance,” and “open-minded commitment to treating others with respect, ” about her “love of neighbor” and “honesty and integrity (in) her work,” haven’t explained why such a person (who is “not at all ideological”) would be willing and eager to pose with a corrupt, dangerously narcissistic cheater and con artist who expects allegiance from his appointees.
What kind of person accepts a nomination from a president indifferent to the country’s security and to citizen deaths, who lies constantly and exploits the office for as much money as he can grab? Only a person whose hunger for power is greater than her respect for life, a fellow megalomaniac who lies and conceals who she is.
Shana
It’s a Yom Kippur miracle!
Uncle Cosmo
FTFY! :^D
Kay
@Aleta:
I’m reconciled to the power grab. What I object to is them insisting I celebrate it. I wouldn’t do it to them if the tables were turned. They would be mad and I would understand that and not fucking WHINE about how I deserve more.
Incredibly, they’re not just bad losers. They’re bad winners too. Why is our job to validate the choices they make? Proceed with the rubberstamping but stop insisting the majority of the country who oppose it make them feel better about themselves. Not my job.
Burnspbesq
@Mary G:
‘Actually it’s Daddy who has the ‘splainin’ to do. I smell a false gift tax return, or maybe a gift tax return that should have been filed but wasn’t.
debbie
@tokyokie:
I listened to an interview with a Forbes editor last week on Fresh Air. He thought the rumored wealth was an overstatement, and then said he believed it was at $2 billion. I’d love to know what he’s thinking at the moment.
Chris Johnson
What I love is that he calls it ‘fake news’.
That’s the tell that it’s fuckin’ real as, um… death and taxes?
I think much like Capone, this one does the serious damage. Twitter seems to be blowing up over it. It seems like if people pay more than $750, that’s seven-fifty DOLLARS in taxes, and then they find that Trump paid seven-fifty DOLLARS (never mind getting tens of millions in refunds due to trickery and bullshit!) while they paid real money and maybe got audited and had to cough up hundreds more dollars or be absolutely screwed and possibly jailed… gee, it seems people lose their minds over their own little selves paying more than Donald Trump, that year.
Warren’s good on this. She’s pointing out Trump is not alone in this. Quite a lot of you also paid more than the entire corporation General Electric paid in corporate taxes, all year. That was also close to nothing, same deal: GE paid maybe a few hundred bucks, if that. You personally? Maybe you were asked to pay a bit more.
More than Donald Trump, or the General Electric Corporation. For the year.
Tumbrels seem in order.
Yutsano
@Kay: Dollars to doughnuts his campaign never gets audited. Things like this are going to get swept under the rug because there will be other more immediate crimes that will need to be pursued first. But I remember an obscure story a few months back saying that someone in Treasury (most likely Mnuchin although the person is never named) was interfering with his mandatory audit. It’s all to the same point: everything is for the protection of the Oval Office Occupier. There’s a big why there. Someone in the snooze media should look into that.
debbie
@Shana:
Who’s Atoning Now? //
Kay
@Aleta:
If Biden wins what she’s looking at is a specific public rejection of her ideology and appointment to that court.
And she doesn’t care. We’re getting her far Right ideology anyway. I’m supposed to thank this person for this? I mean, talk about entitlement.
It’s never enough. Grabbing the seat isn’t enough. We’re now ordered to make them feel better about it.
Burnspbesq
@Yutsano:
‘I’m glad I won’t have to deal with Erin Collins’ voice mail tomorrow.
Kay
@Yutsano:
It’s interesting though, as an approach to prosecuting him because it’s a set of rules he didn’t get around as a private person and the penalties are real- people go to prison. Look at the people who were in and around that campaign- is it four felons now? Bannon now has an entirely new scandal for stealing money from elderly Trump supporters for some “gold” bullshit. It would be shocking if they didn’t steal campaign funds. All that money flowing in. Millions and millions and millions, for years. It is probably the most lucrative Trump enterprise ever.
They have utter contempt for all rules and laws because they think they’re so smart- imagine how they felt about campaign finance rules. They think the money is theirs.
Burnspbesq
@Chris Johnson:
GE’s zero is more likely than Trump’s to be legit. They get massive credits against their US tax bill .for taxes they pay outside the US. There can be, and will be, extensive discussions with tax authorities around the world about transfer pricing (how income and deductions from inter-company transactions get allocated), but TP is such an inexact science that there is plenty of room for good-faith disagreement.
Brachiator
@Casey Collins:
Not necessarily the case. Still, it’s good if Trump’s tax returns stir up controversy.
Chris Johnson
@Burnspbesq: Let’s say ‘more legit’ and leave it at that? I won’t argue that.
I would suggest that if you’re GE, yes you can hire lawyers and lobbyists and arrange to pay no corporate taxes, but also if you are GE you can in fact afford to pay some corporate taxes.
Being more legit than Donald Trump’s finances is not in fact the highest of bars :D
Captain C
@germy: It seems like there should be an easy way to resolve just how much Trump paid in taxes in any given year.
catclub
@Litlebritdifrnt:
on all of us.
Also, as long as he is president he does not have to pay on loans. Except if he stiffs Deutsche Bank they will give away his tax forms to the NYT.
catclub
Strategic lying on depreciation?
Brachiator
@Aleta:
A lot of these people are zealots who think that they are rescuing the country from godless secularism. They see Trump as an imperfect vessel of God’s will. So his corruption doesn’t really matter.
Other right wingers just want the power grab opportunity that Trump is giving them.
catclub
This seems like a pretty good argument to encourage non-payment of taxes.
Burnspbesq
@Chris Johnson:
Especially now that the US rate is lower than a number of our major trading partners. I had well over a thousand billable hours in 2018 realigning international tax structuring to bring income back to the US.
Brachiator
@Chris Johnson:
Again, no one, individual or corporation is obligated to pay taxes and forego deductions that they are entitled to.
Burnspbesq
@catclub:
‘the polite term is “cost segregation.” Any building is full of stuff that can fully legitimately get assigned to asset classes with shorter class lives (bigger deductions over a shorter period of time) than the general 39-1/2 year life for rental real estate. If you can pull, for example, a million bucks worth of alarms and security cameras out of the 39-½ year class and depreciate them over five years, you increase the deduction in years one through five from approximately $25k to $200k. But in years six through 39, the deduction is zero.
Sally
I said on this here almost top 10,000 blog a few years ago, that the Financial Times reported (about fifteen years ago) trump was probably worth, at best, about $30 million.
Sorry for the appalling sentence structure.
Captain C
@L85NJGT: I think his burn rate is way too high for him to stop his various hustles, though other than that you’re right.
Brachiator
@Burnspbesq:
Are Trump properties residential or commercial? Useful life for residential property is 27.5 years and 39 years for commercial.
I agree with your larger point. Could Trump structure deals so that properties are appraised for higher values for depreciation purposes? Inflate costs of improvements?
People also do dodgy stuff with Section 1031 exchanges.
tokyokie
@debbie: I heard the same interview and was wondering the same thing.
tokyokie
@Kay:
I read something not long ago to the effect that the South didn’t merely want the North to accept slavery as a necessary institution, the South also wanted the North to acknowledge the South’s virtuousness in maintaining the institution. Or, to put it in cinematic terms, toward the end of Django Unchained, after Leonardo DiCaprio has gotten the best of Christoph Waltz in securing Kerry Washington’s freedom and then insists that they both participate in some genteel ceremony, Waltz shoots him with a derringer instead. (And the bleeding from the boutonnière was lifted from Sergio Corbuci’s Il mercenario.)
Suzanne
@WaterGirl: Oh God, I hope so.
I want this downfall to be absolutely humiliating. An absolute sideshow. So bad that the shame drenches every Trump voter forever.
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: Definitely a lot of reasons for Melania to want him to lose. If she has an ironclad pre-nup, and it says nothing about not releasing tax returns, this could be her exit strategy. Or vlad’s, depending on how close she is to him.
Otherwise, if he wins, she is stuck with 4 more years.
Planetjanet
The Biden campaign already has stickers in its online store that say “I paid more in taxes than Donald Trump”. Just perfect.
SFAW
@Suzanne:
As if they have any shame.
Suzanne
@WaterGirl: I hope this is embarrassing. Like pants-shitting embarrassing. For all of them. Orange, Mrs. Orange, fucken JARED and all the dumb, basic-as-fuck kids, Kellyanne Conway, Barr, McConnell, Lindsey Graham….
Like, I want it to be so bad that, in fifty years, even kids will hear those names and it will be a most grievous insult…. to be simultaneously a bad person and totally fucken dumb as a rock.
rjnerd
My phone bill is more than his tax bill. I bet a lot of peoples cable bill is higher than his tax bill.
E
@Mary G: So what? Trump is loosing. Trump needs to pull from Biden voters or independents. This story does not help him in that cause. The story doesn’t need to help Biden convert Trump voters. Biden is winning. The story does however make it much more difficult for Trump to add voters, which he has to do to win.
Heywood J.
I’m not generally a fan of the North Koreans’ policy of making three generations of a family be punished for the sins of the grandfather, as it were. But in the case of this goatse of a family, you could reasonably make an exception. Their spirit animal is the remora. It’s probably on their coat of arms, either that or a blood-engorged tick.