NYT: Trump organization paid little to no federal taxes for years claiming massive losses.

"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."

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/27/us/donald-trump-taxes.html


Trump's response, unsurprisingly, is to play the fake news card.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-new-york-times-avoid-paying-taxes-totally

I read that this evening. Disgusting frankly.

I have two reasons to believe these are real:

1) Trump fought really hard to avoid releasing his tax statements. Apparently he's the only recent president to do that. So whatever his real taxes are, they won't be good.

2) It's no surprise that if you put Trump in charge of a business, the business will make huge losses. Just look at the US economy right now.

Was any of this illegal? If not, blame the tax laws.

So was any of it illegal? That is the question. If not this is another damn liberal spin nothing burger.

IRS is looking into it so there's that. NY is as well I believe.

Time will tell then, but the stuff coming out is just laughable right now. If this is all it is I mean come on.

Seriously? Paying $1500 in taxes in15 years is okay?

If it was legal sure. Not saying the system isn't broken, but if he didn't break the law it is a nothing burger.

Good thing that isn't all voters care about.

So much for "teh swamp", Trump is scummy as they come.

There are retro video games worth more than Trump's taxes. Hell, there are comic books and trading cards worth more. THAT IS ****ED!

Would it honestly matter to you if it was?

Always good to know that I'm paying more in taxes than our billionaire president.

@Serraph105: No, it wouldn’t matter.

If anything, we should cut his taxes more.

What's that? You say these returns are from before the GOP tax cut bill that cut his taxes further went into effect?

Well, then I mean we should cut them more beyond that.

It should be like Amazon, give him several million dollars back. He is a (job) creator after all.

@Serraph105: Don't worry, we'll get there if we continue on this trajectory.

Yeah, that's how writeoffs work. I renovate my rental condo, every penny of that gets deducted from my taxes. I work as a contractor (used to) and I write off part of my house as an "office" and part of my next gaming PC gets written off on my taxes because it's a "work" machine." My wife goes back to school, I get to deduct her tuition from my taxes. The tax code has all sorts of writeoff systems worked into it (in Canada, and the US is the same from what I understand) there for anyone who can to take advantage of. People build their whole business strategies around it. Frankly, there have been years where I've paid virtually nothing in taxes because I played my cards right with renovations and tuitions. Real estate is killer for this stuff - and I'm just a small timer.

Unless something illegal happened, this is literally playing by the rules. Seeing as this guy's finances are under constant scrutiny and he will hire top tier accountants, I highly doubt he has done anything illegal. If he does, they'll catch it. The reality is, most of this stuff is designed (originally) to incentivize people to not just sit on their money, and rather put it back into the economy, or do something worthwhile (IE - renovations or education). For a guy like Trump, I'd bet his money is all but exclusively tied up in properties, and those can be great for tax writeoffs.

The only reason this is news is because A) he likely claims to be richer than he is, B) most people don't understand how taxes work, and C) people with a partisan motivation desperately want to rag on the guy for anything they can. Wake me up if they actually turn up anything illegal.

Lied? The guy literally bragged about not paying taxes in the 2016 debates:

"Donald Trump said he's "smart" by not paying income taxes — and argued that if he did, the money would be "squandered."

Trump's jaw-dropping statements came after Hillary Clinton launched a fiery attack on the Republican presidential nominee for breaking a four-decade tradition of White House aspirants releasing their federal income tax returns.

"The only years that anybody's ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax," Clinton said.

Trump quickly retorted: "That makes me smart.""

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-brags-not-paying-taxes-021054653.html

This guy lies all the time. That's why it's disappointing when he has actually been quite open about something and then people say he lied about it.

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.

Seems like the IRS considers this pretty illegal. Source.

Now, do you actually care?

Of course. You do realize that he has to lose before it is determined that he did something illegal, right? Or do you not care about the whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing?

If you get audited and they get something wrong and you challenge them on it, do you want me to call you a tax fraud before it actually gets settled in court? Or do you expect to be treated as innocent until treated guilty? We both know the answer. Why would you expect different for Trump? Oh yeah, you hate the guy - which is fine. It's just not a good reason to assert that he broke the law before the case is settled.

My thoughts? If he owes that $100 million, stick him to the wall. This guy has been benefitting from every (legal) tax loophole in the world for decades. Nail him with another 100 mil if he's breaking the law on top of it.

So, basically, if Trump does something explicitly illegal, but has good enough lawyers to get out of it, you will consider him an innocent man because he was able to beat the charges against him? Like if Trump (or anyone really) robbed a bank on camera, and you could see the video, but was able to get it dropped in court you would consider them innocent, both before and after the court hearing because people managed to get him off the hook?

What I sure as hell won't do is sit back from ten thousand kilometers away with no knowledge more in depth than a few internet news articles and say "Well, he challenged it and beat the IRS, but he had good lawyers, so he must be guilty" - which is what you seem to be doing... I guess I'm the one whose giant, throbbing bias is all but popping out of my pants for the world to see though :D

The problem with your scenario is, we don't have any sort of smoking gun here - there is no video of a bank robbery that you have access to. You're literally just making that up so you can say he's guilty even if he is exonerated. This is not OJ Simpson - I'm betting you don't know the first thing about the details of his his purported tax fraud beyond what the New York Times tells you in an article. Your response is, as far as I can tell, "He has good lawyers so he must be guilty." Are you sure you should be taking this lecturing tone about "caring" about things and insinuating my pro-Trump bias given these circumstances? Again, I'm the one who is quite happy to see the guy stuck to the wall if they can actually nail him. You're the one who seems to think his being exonerated in the court is a sign of his guilt. Who is showing wanton bias here?

Trump is a serial liar, and there are literally countless instances of him being utterly and completely full of crap. He also has the ethical character of a horny Catholic priest and the scruples of a broke hooker. You don't need to go far to find instances where he lies. When he is actually going taking the IRS to court saying "They got it wrong with their audit of my taxes" I'm willing to say "Ok, if he wins I guess he likely wasn't lying." It seems like you're imputing bias on me because I don't just assume he's guilty, win or lose.

But, you know what? Let's settle this. "If Trump does something explicitly illegal"... You seem to be in the know. Give us precise details on what he did that was illegal, and how it was. If you know so damned much that you are going to say "He broke the law" even if he beats the freaking IRS in court, explain it to us - intricately - so we're all educated. You're comparing this to a bank robbery where we have a video of it happening in front of us, so clear and all but irrefutable evidence, so give us a breakdown of the case, of the specifics of how he defrauded the government, etc. You seem to know he's guilty - so tell us. I know the guy lies as a reflex action, so I'm more than willing to entertain that he committed tax fraud.

I'll wait.

It's scummy, but probably not illegal.

Having said that...Trump now says this report is completely untrue, and he has actually been paying heaps of taxes.

That sounds like a bald-faced lie, so it'll be fun to watch Trump dig himself into a hole trying to back that up (without providing any evidence).

If it's legal, then that's a problem with the law, not Trump.

I mean it's immoral as hell when people making 1% of what he makes pay 10,000% more in taxes....but again, if it's not illegal, the problem is with the law not Trump.

Tired of liberals thinking things like this will "get" Trump. I mean, I wish they would, but he is a slippery bastard. And frankly I think people are tired of it. Specifically the majority of moderates out there. It's like "Oh shit, did we get him? No? Oh, it's just another painful reminder of how the system is broken? ****"

My guess is that it's a political half truth. This is about federal income taxes, right? He probably pays lots of state income taxes, property taxes, and other types of taxes. He just works his finances in a way that he can deduct his federal income taxes down to nothing. Again, two years in the past eight I've paid basically no income taxes because of tuition and renovation writeoffs. I payed plenty of other types of taxes, but no federal income taxes. it's the same trick used with Schrodinger's immigrant which simultaneously pays lots of taxes but is a tax burden on the system. They pay zero federal taxes, but they get taxed in other ways (sales tax, for instance). The debate in the media is unclear because every new reporter who wants to talk about it takes a side which supports their biased position, and then leaves out the context of what type of taxes are being paid, and what ones aren't.

It's like when politicians brag about their budgeting by talking about reducing debt, when what they did was run a 90 billion deficit instead of the projected 100 billion deficit. It's a load of crap when you see the context, but it's true enough that they can say it and argue "Well, it wasn't a lie... We'd owe an extra 10 billion if I hadn't cut our expected deficit down by 10%!"

Aka does every big company. Politicans put rules in place to make this happen. Smart business. This is why politicians have to put a stop towards those techniques but do they? if that information is true, clearly not. But why not? lobby groups, a thing he basically was running on in 2016 and proofs trumps point completely.

Also the reason why he doesn't release his taxes, because most people simple don't understand how the game works. Lots of company's buy up shit and report losses at the end of the year even i do that with my own company to avoid having to drop all my money into taxes that go to nowhere land.

How do they coup with it morally? they create jobs.

Anyway, until they have actual hard facts that clearly state this with exact examples that are 100% validated. It's really just fake news, and frankly even if it was right and legal its a nothing burger.

But its the new york times tabloit again after all so no shockers there.

I gave you a more obvious illegal scenario and applied your logic to it and asked whether your innocent until proven guilty belief really applies. You don't even bother to respond to it, you just press the fact that pretty much everyone in the forum is not a legal expert and so you can hold onto the idea that the IRS may be wrong in their 10 year legal battle with Trump's lawyers and you won't judge either way until it's finally decided in court.

Yes, I do think that if someone beats the IRS, an organization that is incredibly adept at getting your money, I'm not going to assume that they're guilty when I don't know the first damned thing about the case.

What a monstrous Trump supporter am I!!!! That's what you're going for, right?

It's not that you're not a legal expert that's the problem. It's that you assume he's guilty if he gets convicted, and you assume he's guilty if he doesn't get convicted, while not seeming to know much about the case - but you want to paint me as biased. That's the problem.

@AfterShafter: Guilty or not he is still a jerk.

if legal why make an effort to say its fake? breaking news: trump caught obeying the law?

Oh yeah. A liar too. Narcissist. Misogynist. Arrogant, egotist, often ignorant and damn near proud of it... And honestly, if I were a betting a man, I'd put damn near even odds on him having broken the law figuring he could get away with it - and if he didn't, it wasn't because he's moral, it's because he figured he'd get caught.

I'm just not going to bet against the IRS here. If there is one thing the government is infinitely efficient at, it's getting the money they're owed by the rules they set. If Trump broke those rules, I trust they'll squeeze every penny they're owed from him. If they don't convict him, I'll trust he's not guilty precisely because of how good they are at squeezing blood from stones - nothing to do with Trump's character.

Image. The guy is so full of himself he gets fake magazine covers made up with him on it to post in his golf courses. I am 100% confident he'd declare something fake if it tarnished his ritzy image.

Seeing as he bragged about it in the 2016 debates, I don't think he feels the slightest bit of guilt over milking the tax code for all it is worth. His followers seeing evidence that he might not be the biggest billionaire and business genius out there? Now THAT is fake news in Trump land...

The tRump cults won't care, but any swing voters struggling financially because of trumps failures on covid may be swayed

Given that many people are jumping at this with definitive proof, basically "hoping" and "assuming" it's true, can't really accuse the other side of being worse, same shit, different coin face.

Such a cool con job. Really hope he gets a second term just as an exercise in absurdity.

One I'm not a liberal. To know is saying this will get trump. We're saying this is disgusting. And three he's being investigated by the IRS so it doesn't look like it's legal. Sorry your boy trump is so vile.

Who cares if it is illegal or not?

Do you believe this is Trump’s biggest fear, or why he’s taken such initiative to keep this info from the public? He is predominantly concerned with his image of being a “winner” and the epitome of a successful businessman in the eyes of the public. That’s far more important to him than legality, which I’m sure he laughs at and views in contempt.

This paints him a complete fraud. A liar and a con man is a liar and a con man, shocker of the century. A fact that anyone who isn’t delusional knew from the moment they set eyes on him. But I’d love to see him have to pay back nearly half a BILLION in loans and debts, if the article is accurate.

Sad that people still worship this loser.

It is a cult, cult followers believe anything their leader says, they are completely unable to accept any faults or failures. The trump followers on this page think he done a great job with the pandemic despite the objective facts.

I have to say though.....

Although I enjoy seeing Trump exposed for who he is, I question the wisdom of dropping these pieces so close to the election. Like the Access Hollywood before, this is obviously a politically driven piece intended to sway voters. Yet I think it does more to the opposite; it brings and hardens sympathy for Trump, framing him as a poor victim of an endless biased media barrage that will drive voters more to support him based on general principle. I know this is the main reason why my father initially got behind him and continues to so strongly back him. He’s, remarkably, a victim.

It just feels that Trump has made himself so disliked and such a target that it has become an armor against everything thrown his way no matter how bad or accurate. I think this will do nothing so well as to strengthen his support and lead him to another victory come November.

Possibly, but trump also place a lot on his business skills, this shows that he is not a successful businessman.

He is a Billionaire and takes no pay for being President. Going bankrupt several times and coming back from them shows determination to succeed which he did. His policies have been great for the US. If the facts were reported by our fake news media you would know of that.

Over 200k dead due to a failed covid response and a collapsed economy, mass rioting across the country....

America is a dumpster fire and trump is a failure.

So where's the illegal stuff? Where's the tax evasion or the ties to Russia we were told the returns were hiding? Assuming of course they're his actual returns.

Jeeze slow down, loads of time for more details before the election occurs... why so hasty ;)

So you're trying to blame Cuomo's fuckup in NY resulting in NY having the highest death rate worldwide, the collapsed economy resulting from states shutting down with no federal mandate to do so, and riots caused by what? A police incident in Minnesota on Trump? You're desperate for something to cling to, clearly. And since there's nothing illegal even in these alleged tax returns, that means that 4 years in, you still got nothing.

Typical trump supporter, your cult leader can do no wrong and all of americas problems are someone else's fault.

You are the worst type of apologist.