why is following the tax code a big issue?

[oft_wears_hats]

@running_coach

FactCheck. The full answer goes into more detail.
I don’t doubt that Trump will do everything he can(legal or not) to funnel left-overs into his own coffers.

I agree. Based on his past behavior, something tells me that Trump was planning on funneling the campaign leftovers into the Trump Foundation. After all, Trump has asked debtors to pay into his “foundation”, used it for personal expenses, and has favored his own businesses for campaign expenses. Hopefully, the recent revelations and subsequent suspension of TF collections has put a stake through that idea.

@Anny_Middon

THE WSJ just published a piece (sorry, no link) speculating that releasing his 2015 return will be Trump’s October surprise. Since he very likely filed an extension, his return will be due Oct. 15.

It does seem to me that if so he could have forestalled some of the negative press he’s been getting by saying right away that of course he paid federal income tax, and he’d release his 2015 return as soon as it was completed. But then I don’t live in Trumpland, so their logic always escapes me.

The WSJ article pointed out that taxpayers have 2 years to file an amended return, so if he loses the election (or I guess even if he wins) he could change his return and get the tax money back.

You think his October surprise will be to do what Mitt Romney did in 2012? I thought an October surprise had to be something extraordinarily damaging or beneficial to one of the candidates. Trump would have to pay a LOT of taxes and/or make massive charitable donations to move the needle. If Trump has a tax-related October surprise (and the 1995 leak isn’t it), then I think it will be a more recent return showing that he’s worth way less than he claims and is still paying little to no taxes. Even that wouldn’t move the needle very much, IMO.

[Blue_Blistering_Barnacle]

@Anny_Middon

THE WSJ just published a piece (sorry, no link) speculating that releasing his 2015 return will be Trump’s October surprise. Since he very likely filed an extension, his return will be due Oct. 15.

It does seem to me that if so he could have forestalled some of the negative press he’s been getting by saying right away that of course he paid federal income tax, and he’d release his 2015 return as soon as it was completed. But then I don’t live in Trumpland, so their logic always escapes me.

The WSJ article pointed out that taxpayers have 2 years to file an amended return, so if he loses the election (or I guess even if he wins) he could change his return and get the tax money back.

That would be *fiendishly *clever.

Unless negative public opinion (amongst swing voters) develops and sticks. Then it would be too clever by half.

[Dangerosa]

@running_coach

FactCheck. The full answer goes into more detail.
I don’t doubt that Trump will do everything he can(legal or not) to funnel left-overs into his own coffers.

For instance, his own foundation. :rolleyes:

[DrDeth]

@drewder

Right now a lot of people are attacking trump because of his tax return but it seems like a lot of crap to me. .

Hasnt Trump himself admitted he is under Audit for several years?

[Jophiel]

@Blue_Blistering_Barnacle

That would be *fiendishly *clever.

Unless negative public opinion (amongst swing voters) develops and sticks. Then it would be too clever by half.

Yeah, taking two weeks of attacks during the early voting season just to pop out with a tax return that everyone knows was ginned up for his benefit isn’t exactly brilliant.

But the “He lost a billion dollars” attack seems to be more effective anyway. That strikes directly at his argument that he’s an awesome businessman who’s a big winner.

Trump’s left over campaign money will probably go to pay campaign bills such as some exceedingly large leasing bills from Trump Tower, Trump Airlines and a lot of taco bowls billed from the Trump Lunch Counter.

[Folacin]

@Hari_Seldon

It would interesting to see his response if someone asked him about the carried interest loophole. Has he ever even heard of it?

He at one point specifically called that out as something that should be closed (which I assume means he doesn’t use it). Whether it is in his current plan I have no idea.

[Voyager]

@Hari_Seldon

A couple points. To me the most surprising thing is: how did this brilliant businessman lose nearly a billion in one year? Conjecture: fun and games with subsidiaries located in off shore tax havens.

His tax accountant says that Trump doesn’t know nuttin’ about the tax code. He signed the return and asked no questions. It would interesting to see his response if someone asked him about the carried interest loophole. Has he ever even heard of it?

As far as we can tell, the losses didn’t come from anything so sneaky. He paid too much for the money losing Plaza Hotel. He paid too much for a money losing airline he renamed Trump Air. And the casinos were also bleeding money. He lost money the old fashioned way - incompetence. What a genius!
No major bank lends to him anymore.
BTW, I think at one point he was in favor of closing the carried interest loophole - but that is not one that affects him.

[Voyager]

@aceplace57

I’d consider Trump a idiot if he didn’t use a perfectly legal tax break.

Is anybody except a politician going to raise their hand and beg to pay more income taxes? Politicians have this bizarre belief that paying extra taxes and refusing legal tax breaks makes them look noble and pious. Actually, they are just being stupid.

Any rational person with a substantial income, will hire the best tax attorneys and use every legal tax break in the books. Who wants to get screwed by the tax man when it’s not necessary? There’s nothing patriotic in paying exorbitant taxes.

Rich people don’t pay exorbitant taxes. If he were just some slob, no one would care. But he is supposedly running for president to benefit the entire country, and that doesn’t necessarily include screwing Uncle Sam out of every penny both here and with his fake charity.
Is he in it for him or for the country? Given that his “blind trust” involves letting his kids run his businesses, how do we know that he won’t consider it stupid not to make decisions as president to benefit the companies he will take over again after he gets impeached. Anything else would be stupid, right?

[Chronos]

When we’re looking at what a politician has done, the last question we should ask is “was it legal?”. What Trump did here was (probably) legal. When Gary Johnson used marijuana, that was definitely illegal. And yet, Johnson isn’t catching any flak over it. Why not? Because, since politicians are the ones who make the laws to begin with, the relevant question is always “should it be legal?”.

Johnson and many Americans, including most of his supporters, agree that marijuana should be legal. He’s been open about his marijuana use, and has made legalization a major plank in his campaign platform. And so there’s no hypocrisy, and no pushback over it.

Trump, however, has frequently railed against people who don’t pay taxes, and most Americans, even his supporters, think that the rich should be required to pay taxes. So when it turns out that Trump himself doesn’t pay taxes, that’s a big deal.

[Anny_Middon]

@Voyager

As far as we can tell, the losses didn’t come from anything so sneaky. He paid too much for the money losing Plaza Hotel. He paid too much for a money losing airline he renamed Trump Air. And the casinos were also bleeding money. He lost money the old fashioned way - incompetence. What a genius!
No major bank lends to him anymore.

Just curious… Is it true that no major bank will lend to him? I thought it was no major US bank, which is why he’s so much in debt to the Russians. And maybe the Chinese? – I forget.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@sleestak

In other words, being smart financially is bad.

If he was smart financially, he wouldn’t have lost a billion dollars.

That tax implications are a big fat “meh” to me. It’s that his claim to be the better candidate is his business acumen… and he lost a billion dollars.

[Voyager]

@Anny_Middon

Just curious… Is it true that no major bank will lend to him? I thought it was no major US bank, which is why he’s so much in debt to the Russians. And maybe the Chinese? – I forget.

The major NY banks. I think Deutsche Bank did - but that figures, right? I don’t know about Chinese banks, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he owes the Russians money - but that would be cleared by his buddy Putin.

[Bryan_Ekers]

Interesting point - forget about candidates disclosing their tax returns (how did that crap get started, anyway?), I’d be more interested in finding out who they owe money to, and if in amounts likely to affect their decisions.

[That_Don_Guy]

@drewder

Right now a lot of people are attacking trump because of his tax return but it seems like a lot of crap to me. Nobody is saying that he broke the law or even did anything that unusual. I suspect you wouldn’t find a single person who voluntarily pays significantly more on their taxes than they are required to, not counting those donate a dollar for the election fund. Trump didn’t write the tax code so it seems odd to attack him for following it. It just seems like a convenient way to attack people who make money by methods other than wages.

I don’t think it’s as much an attack on Trump as it is pointing out what is conceived to be a problem with the system. “Yes, Trump did not pay taxes for the last however many years, and yes, it’s legal - but why is it legal?”

[control-z]

If a billionaire consistently pays no taxes and it’s legal, then the tax laws need to be simplified/changed.

Also people complain that Trump is paying no taxes, but how about his many businesses and employees? Every one of his businesses or properties are adding to local, state, and/or federal coffers. Just the property taxes alone must be staggering.

[running_coach]

@control-z

If a billionaire consistently pays no taxes and it’s legal, then the tax laws need to be simplified/changed.

Also people complain that Trump is paying no taxes, but how about his many businesses and employees? Every one of his businesses or properties are adding to local, state, and/or federal coffers. Just the property taxes alone must be staggering.

And maybe the city/county waived certain taxes as an incentive for him to build there.

[CarnalK]

@control-z

If a billionaire consistently pays no taxes and it’s legal, then the tax laws need to be simplified/changed.

Also people complain that Trump is paying no taxes, but how about his many businesses and employees? Every one of his businesses or properties are adding to local, state, and/or federal coffers. Just the property taxes alone must be staggering.

So Trump gets credit for his employee’s income tax? Why stop there? The banks that loaned the money to Trump to start those businesses should maybe get the credit. The guy hasn’t been personally responsible for a business in a long time, win or lose. That’s the lesson he learned in the 90’s.

[SmartAlecCat]

@drewder

Trump didn’t write the tax code so it seems odd to attack him for following it.

Well… as a matter of fact…

Trump personally lobbied Congress to give real estate developers bigger tax breaks

In testimony before a House Budget Committee task force in November 1991, Trump called the 1986 tax reform legislation an “absolute catastrophe” that had pushed the real estate business into a depression.

To fix the situation, Trump advocated a combination of higher tax rates for the rich and the restoration of special exemptions for real estate investment. Together, they would compel people seeking to lower their tax bills to invest in real estate. Trump called for accelerated depreciation of property and rules that encouraged certain investors to seek out “passive losses” that could offset their other income and slash their steep tax bills. Trump cited wealthy dentists as the typical investor he hoped to attract.

The benefits became part of a suite of tax breaks that have buoyed the real estate industry and the wealthy developers behind it. There’s no way of knowing whether Trump specifically profited from the tax provisions he promoted, but four years after Congress adopted some of them, the real estate mogul declared a $916 million nonoperating loss that might have eliminated his income tax bill for 18 years.

[MaxTheVool]

A lot of people are trying to make an analogy between Trump paying zero taxes and more normal people’s taxes, with questions like “do you take every deduction that you are entitled to?”. But that’s really a false equivalency.

I am far from an expert on rich-person-taxes, but I’m sure that it’s not the case that Trump just went out, did business for a year, spent some money, made some money, lost some money, and then showed up at rich-guy equivalent of H&R Block at the end of the year and said “OK, here are all my receipts, let’s fill out my taxes”, and the tax guy said “hmm, OK, well, looks like there are three deductions that are available to you… would you like to take them?”, and Trump thought for a second and said “well, gosh, sure, I guess I would”.

Rather, I’m quite certain that huge portions of the wheeling and dealing and legal and financial maneuvering that Trump did over the course of the year was set up in a way to minimize his tax burden.

I own a house and I certainly deduct mortgage interest from my taxes. But I have not investigated whether I could engage in shenanigans in which I took out a much larger loan than necessary and then borrowed against it heavily so that on paper I was paying way more mortgage interest than I actually had to, such that my tax burden was reduced, or something along those lines.
Now, are such things legal? Well, sometimes they are and sometimes they’re not… and presumably the job of a good tax lawyer is to find the edges and corners and crevasses and push right up as close to that line as possible without going over it.

Is it ethical, however? Well, that’s a tough one. I think it’s a bit like porn… I know it when I see it. Except that the “me” in that case has to be someone who is already an expert on tax law, and also has full access to someone’s books.
Fundamentally, it’s a tricky topic. I don’t feel comfortable saying that someone that is legal is evil. But of course, there are plenty of things that are both legal and evil.