What purpose does it serve? And does the average person know an accept this purpose?
To someone like me with no knowledge, it sounds absurd. Do bad business to avoid paying taxes. Surely it’s not that simple, or everyone would do it.
Wouldn’t that only make sense if the tax rate was above 100%?
It’s not that simple, but businesses can often move profit around to where they pay the least tax on it, while claiming losses in places they pay the most tax. Eg lets say company A makes a $2 million profit in the US. Rather than paying company tax on that, they set up company B in say Turks and Caicos islands. Company B charges a $3 million consulting fee to company A which they claim as a business expense. Now company A actually lost $1 million for the year, so not only do they not pay tax for the year, they can claim a $1 million profit next year and not pay any tax.
And back in the Turks and Caicos company B has $3 million in the bank and doesn’t pay any tax because there’s zero company tax in the Turks and Caicos islands. Company B can then invest back in company A or in other businesses. Depending on how it’s done this may or may not be legal, a lot of lawyers and tax advisers get paid a lot of money for finding ways to perform such tricks and there is many many variations and many countries with extremely low tax rates you can shift profits too.
Now I don’t know if Trump was doing something like this, but thats just an example of how a company making a loss can actually be profitable.
If these are the only tax returns that Trump produces, one would think that this would bury him. But I have to say I am seeing some amazingly disturbing denial of reality from a rather large segment of the voting population this time around. I am beginning to think that 2012 might have been our last ‘normal’ election for a while.
I don’t think these documents suggest Trump did anything illegal. It’s about appearances. It suggests he used the laws to pay as little tax as possible probably for years, while at the same time complaining about other people not paying their fair share. He just recently ragged on Obama via Twitter for paying a certain % in taxes for his salary, like he should be paying more or something. Plus, he refuses to release his tax returns, so it strongly suggests he’s hiding something that he thinks will embarrass him or overshadow his campaign
Exactly.
Actually, it would have been more had he paid everyone what he owed them for their work on the properties he claimed failed, as well as paying the legitimate debts on them.
Pretty good idea, build an empire, let others pay for it, stiff everyone involved, owe millions and millions, then "lose it, " file bankruptcy to wipe out the debt, and take a billion dollar write off for his “loss.” Win/win/win for the Donald, lose/lose/lose for the little guy.
On casinos, which are about as close to a license to print money as it gets.
Which are cash businesses, and really, really easy to cheat on income. Not that I’m suggesting the candidate of a major party cheated on his income.
Even if this isn’t a big deal to many people, it will continue putting pressure on him.
I pretty much agree with the above. Nothing particularly illegal or scandalous; it’s more like a Mitt Romney moment. “I’m going to ask you working stiffs to pay your 20% to the IRS while (fake) billionaires like me pay nothing.”
This is what I sometimes refer to as sociopath capitalism. It’s not the capitalism of Adam Smith, but the capitalism of Enron, Madoff, Pharma Bro, and Trump. In their eyes, capitalism doesn’t reward all; instead, capitalism is a zero-sum game of winners…and losers. It’s not about who can build a great business with great ideas and strong value. In their world there are simply two types of people: the quick and the dead, the predators and the prey, the smart and the stupid, the winners and losers.
And guess what folks? Donald Trump is the smart one, and those who pay taxes are stupid. Contractors who got jobbed by Trump? Stupid. Business partners who got shorted? Stupid. Trump’s got your money, and you’re the sucker. It’s a game, like one poker player bullshitting everyone else at the table. It’s not about making everyone else at the table happy at the end of the night. It’s about one guy walking away from the table with all the money, leaving all the other players with nothing but loose change in their pockets and a little bit of booze at the bottom of the bottle to wallow in their frustration.
Yep. A loss on a tax return isn’t necessarily a loss IRL as you and I know it. A very good business might very well kill (well, not literally) to be able to take a loss like this to offset future taxes. I honestly think this is much ado about nothing, although the optics are, of course, not good for Trump. He’s going to get hurt much more by late night tweets about “fat chicks”.
I just watched Jake Tapper questioning Giuliani about Trump’s alleged failure to pay income tax. Rudy went on about how everyone tries to pay the least amount possible and whatever might have Trump done was legal. Tapper continued with “Most people pay income tax and why shouldn’t Trump”?. It seems to me he is missing the point and and I can’t figure out why he didn’t ask Rudy “If everything Trump did was legal and no more or less than everyone else does, why not admit it and release the records?” That’s my question. I really don’t have an issue with someone minimizing taxes legally. I do. But admit it!
I also caught a bit of someone on Fox interviewing Christie about Trump’s various bone-headed remarks. Christie simply followed the Trump playbook and, instead of answering the questions, accused Clinton of various misdeeds. Of course, it being Fox “News”, there were no challenges forthcoming from the interviewer.
When you look at what’s trending on Google News, it’s mostly negative news about Donald Trump - has been the last week. No end in sight. I suspect that a good 37-41 percent are going to vote for him no matter what the media find in their investigative reporting, but in all probability, it would seem that he needs at minimum 42 percent to win the election, and he probably needs closer to 45 or 46 percent. He can only win by dragging Clinton down into the low 40s and keeping her there, which would have been plausible a week ago, but much less so now.
What does it say about the GOP that the last two candidates they’ve put up for president both made a mark by opposing the freeloaders that don’t pay their own way while not paying any income taxes. (Yes, I know Romney paid a massive 14% in the one year that he released, but we all know he did the same damn thing in the years we didn’t see, which is why we didn’t see them.)
It’s their very Darwinistic form of capitalism that justifies it.
The people at the New York Times are fully aware that they are risking prosecution, but think that this is worth the public’s knowledge, like the Pentagon Papers. From this article:
Also, I don’t know where you got that they weren’t authentic. The New York Times talked to Jack Mitnick, an accountant who handled Trump’s taxes for years. He looked at them, said the signature was his, explained a weird thing where he had to type in with his type writer a number that was too big for the form, and said
We reading here know that he sucks as a businessman, but there are some voters who don’t think that who will be surprised. Those who don’t like Hillary, and aren’t huge fans of Trump but think he might be a good president considering how successful he’s been at business and if he’s good at running businesses he might be good at running the country. More of them will be second guessing themselves.
Also, it’d be more likely to be a non-story if Trump ignored this, but we know that’s not going to happen. He can’t handle insults well and definitely can’t take insults to his strengths as a businessman. He might sue the Times, he’ll definitely try to explain how this proves nothing and how he’s such a great businessman, and will say more stuff about Crooked Hillary.
If the Clinton campaign is smart, the spin is: Donald Trump, due to poor business decisions, had a bad year economically in 1995, and as a result didn’t pay any income taxes for 20 years. Have any of you had a bad year economically in the past 20 years? Did any of you get to forego paying taxes for 20 years as a result?
Why should Mr. Trump, or anyone else, pay taxes on a net loss?
Most Americans don’t pay any federal income tax.
But of those here that do, do any of you pay more than you have to? Do you forego any deductions in order to make sure you are paying your “fair share”? I don’t.
No. I pay a shitload. Because I haven’t bought the necessary Congressmen to classify my income as anything other than income.
Trump on buying politicians:
*“When you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do.”
“I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what? When I need something from them, two years later, three years later, I call them, and they are there for me.”*
You don’t get to hide behind “I only pay what the law allows” when you are on the record stating that you’ve paid the lawmakers to advocate for you.
One of the larger issues (which will undoubtedly be overlooked by the media) is that we have a terrible system of taxation that puts most of the load on middle class families that earn W-2 wages. Trump and Romney are proof that the system needs to be overhauled. But it won’t be as long as republicans and corporations run the government.