Donald's Fiscal Mischiefs

[Coughdrop addict]

Top House Republican calls for probe of source of NYT Trump tax documents

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) called on Monday for a probe into the sources of The New York Times story that detailed two decades worth of President Trump's tax records and financial dealings.
Brady, the head Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, released a statement on the Times report that was published Sunday, saying a “felony crime was committed” by giving Trump’s tax information to the newspaper.

Republicans: "It's fake news!"

Also Republicans: "Prosecute whoever leaked it!"

Pick one. You can't leak something that is fake.

Just goes to show how morally bankrupt the GOP has become. They are unconcerned that Trump is almost a Billion dollars in debt, with $421 million coming due to foreign interests (read Russians) in 2021. They only care that someone talked. It's an attitude you would expect from organized crime rather than a political party.

[Alastor]

Republicans: "It's fake news!"

Also Republicans: "Prosecute whoever leaked it!"

Pick one. You can't leak something that is fake.

Just goes to show how morally bankrupt the GOP has become. They are unconcerned that Trump is almost a Billion dollars in debt, with $421 million coming due to foreign interests (read Russians) in 2021. They only care that someone talked. It's an attitude you would expect from organized crime rather than a political party.

Read Russians? That's one hell of an assumption to make. Also it is an excellent example of how even sth that has a true foundation can be spun and twisted into "fake news". This is how you can both leak sth and make it fake. I don't doubt Trump is using every legal trick his accountants know to pay less tax. I doubt his accountants would be stupid enough to break the law though, first they seem quite competent and secondly they don't really need to, nor have I seen any proof to that effect. Similarly, I doubt that this type of tax is the only tax Trump is paying.

Now the person who leaked these documents, most likely did break the law. There is a few possibly legal sources this could have come from and the Times did claim this was the case. But I can hardly take such protestations seriously with how partisan journalism has gotten. No, in my personal opinion this smells illegal leak, possibly from a federal agent, all over. Of course the Times are safe from prosecution, publishing illegally leaked information is quite legal. They also have the absolute right to refuse to disclose their source, so tough luck to the Republicans, but it's not exactly that unexpected they would want to rain down some punishment.

[Heathen Hammer]

How dare those Republicans ask for a source to an outrageous claim Democrats made up about them!

[B. W.]

Not surprisingly, it turns out that the NYT twisted the facts a little in the article and some outlets on the right are scrutinizing it for what it is. This, by all means is not the only place these rebuttals are being ran:

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog...mps_taxes.html

[Alastor]

Not surprisingly, it turns out that the NYT twisted the facts a little in the article and some outlets on the right are scrutinizing it for what it is. This, by all means is not the only place these rebuttals are being ran:

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog...mps_taxes.html

I found this statement particularly notable:

And one more thing: Biden, who sat in the Senate for over thirty years, was almost certainly involved in crafting and voting for the laws that enabled Trump to structure his taxes as he did. If people think Trump paid too little, they need to blame Biden.

I mean I don't know if it is strictly true, I don't have the exact laws used and/or voted in hand, but it is highly plausible and speaks to what I wrote before... Trump is not an odd case taxwise, he is a rather typical one, and everyone both Democrat and Republican has contributed to and benefited from this tax reality. So to point the finger at Trump like this now feels a taaad bit hypocritical. The Times just wanted to give some more ammo to Biden before the debate, at least enough for a cheap shot or two. And my dying belief in the existence of fair journalism has taken another blow.

[Infidel144]

26 U.S. Code § 7213 - Unauthorized disclosure of information

(1)Federal employees and other persons
It shall be unlawful for any officer or employee of the United States or any person described in section 6103(n) (or an officer or employee of any such person), or any former officer or employee, willfully to disclose to any person, except as authorized in this title, any return or return information (as defined in section 6103(b)). Any violation of this paragraph shall be a felony punishable upon conviction by a fine in any amount not exceeding $5,000, or imprisonment of not more than 5 years, or both, together with the costs of prosecution, and if such offense is committed by any officer or employee of the United States, he shall, in addition to any other punishment, be dismissed from office or discharged from employment upon conviction for such offense.


(2)State and other employees
It shall be unlawful for any person (not described in paragraph (1)) willfully to disclose to any person, except as authorized in this title, any return or return information (as defined in section 6103(b)) acquired by him or another person under subsection (d), (i)(1)(C), (3)(B)(i), or (7)(A)(ii), (k)(10), (13), or (14), (l)(6), (7), (8), (9), (10), (12), (15), (16), (19), (20), or (21) or (m)(2), (4), (5), (6), or (7) of section 6103 or under section 6104(c). Any violation of this paragraph shall be a felony punishable by a fine in any amount not exceeding $5,000, or imprisonment of not more than 5 years, or both, together with the costs of prosecution.


(3)Other persons
It shall be unlawful for any person to whom any return or return information (as defined in section 6103(b)) is disclosed in a manner unauthorized by this title thereafter willfully to print or publish in any manner not provided by law any such return or return information. Any violation of this paragraph shall be a felony punishable by a fine in any amount not exceeding $5,000, or imprisonment of not more than 5 years, or both, together with the costs of prosecution.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/7213

Is what the NYT did covered under section 3 of this title?

[Cyclops]

Rich man benefits from tax system built to benefit rich men. I don't think Trump broke any laws here.

If his opponents want to overhaul the tax system I guess that has merit (good luck though) but this doesn't seem like a silver bullet to win the election.

[antaeus]

Rich man benefits from tax system built to benefit rich men. I don't think Trump broke any laws here.

If his opponents want to overhaul the tax system I guess that has merit (good luck though) but this doesn't seem like a silver bullet to win the election.

Nobody is suggesting he broke laws.

It's more a point of intent and the meaning of the tax regulations. Tax codes are written to be comprehensive. When a loophole is discovered it is exploited in spite of the intent of the codes. In time that loophole is either closed or legitimised through changes to law. A politician who seeks to lead a country should represent the spirit and intent of the laws and codes they intend to manage. With this in mind, Trump should either seek to change the system to legitimise his desired tax practices, or tow the line and do his taxes according to the intent of their design. At this point he has done neither.

It is yet another thing that speaks to character. But hey... people don't like Trump because he's principled. They like him because he is not.

[Coughdrop addict]

If anything, this has proven Trump is terrible at business and his entire public image was a lie. That's why Trump defrauded the students of his sham university and stole from his sham charity to pay legal fees and buy a portrait of himself.

He wasn't doing it just because he's a scumbag. It's because he's a broke scumbag.

[sumskilz]

It's more a point of intent and the meaning of the tax regulations. Tax codes are written to be comprehensive. When a loophole is discovered it is exploited in spite of the intent of the codes.

Hmm... I always assumed most loopholes are intentional (or at least intentionally left open), considering they tend to benefit those who contribute the most to political campaigns. Sure, that could be a non-causative correlation, but believing that would be like believing regulations are passed to protect consumers rather than to disadvantage the business competition of those already in power.

[Love Mountain]

Hmm... I always assumed most loopholes are intentional (or at least intentionally left open), considering they tend to benefit those who contribute the most to political campaigns. Sure, that could be a non-causative correlation, but believing that would be like believing regulations are passed to protect consumers rather than to disadvantage the business competition of those already in power.

All tax codes are a compromise, and I think it's good to have a constant clamor for closing such loopholes and making the tax code better.

[Cyclops]

Hmm... I always assumed most loopholes are intentional (or at least intentionally left open), considering they tend to benefit those who contribute the most to political campaigns. Sure, that could be a non-causative correlation, but believing that would be like believing regulations are passed to protect consumers rather than to disadvantage the business competition of those already in power.

I think occasionally consumer protection regulations are passed because some "activist judge" decides soft drinks shouldn't contain molluscs not indicated on the labelling or some commo rubbish like that.

[Heathen Hammer]

Rich man benefits from tax system built to benefit rich men. I don't think Trump broke any laws here.

If his opponents want to overhaul the tax system I guess that has merit (good luck though) but this doesn't seem like a silver bullet to win the election.

The senile elephant in the room is Joe Biden that spent half a century in the government passing laws that allowed Trump as a private figure to pay less taxes in the first place.

[Lord Thesaurian]

I wonder if NY officials have been so much more determined to get Trump post 2015 just to cover for the fact they didn’t particularly mind he and every other wealthy family in NY doing this hide your money using your kids stuff since before the invention of the tax code. Trump’s brazenness might risk exposing the game for the rest of them. He’s an embarrassment and a conspicuous liability the other Upper East Side dynasties cannot abide. Not sure if “closing loopholes” is a coherent and practicable remedy or if something like this is more enforceable. Capital flight is a boilerplate counter argument and probably less impactful in a world that, for the time being, still runs on USD.

https://www.businessinsider.com/weal...-warren-2019-7

As was pointed out, the Times is recycling their own old news to create the impression of some bombshell report of new information about Trump’s financial misdeeds.

President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents, an investigation by The New York Times has found.

Mr. Trump won the presidency proclaiming himself a self-made billionaire, and he has long insisted that his father, the legendary New York City builder Fred C. Trump, provided almost no financial help.

But The Times’s investigation, based on a vast trove of confidential tax returns and financial records, reveals that Mr. Trump received the equivalent today of at least $413 million from his father’s real estate empire, starting when he was a toddler and continuing to this day.

Much of this money came to Mr. Trump because he helped his parents dodge taxes. He and his siblings set up a sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts from their parents, records and interviews show. Records indicate that Mr. Trump helped his father take improper tax deductions worth millions more. He also helped formulate a strategy to undervalue his parents’ real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on tax returns, sharply reducing the tax bill when those properties were transferred to him and his siblings.

These maneuvers met with little resistance from the Internal Revenue Service, The Times found. The president’s parents, Fred and Mary Trump, transferred well over $1 billion in wealth to their children, which could have produced a tax bill of at least $550 million under the 55 percent tax rate then imposed on gifts and inheritances.

The Trumps paid a total of $52.2 million, or about 5 percent, tax records show.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...red-trump.html

[Love Mountain]

I wonder if NY officials have been so much more determined to get Trump post 2015 just to cover for the fact they didn’t particularly mind he and every other wealthy family in NY doing this hide your money using your kids stuff since before the invention of the tax code.

What's wrong with pushing and writing about Trump's taxes? He's refused to divulge them when every other candidate has done so, both in this election and in past elections.

[antaeus]

The senile elephant in the room is Joe Biden that spent half a century in the government passing laws that allowed Trump as a private figure to pay less taxes in the first place.

Trump, and every other person who can afford it, has a firm of people who look for ways around the codes. Those ways are periodically closed by well meaning politicians, and the team of accountants and lawyers look for the next loophole. Taxation is a complicated area where any changes to the codes invariably opens up new ways around them. Politicians will spend entire careers specialising in tax and still come out looking like they've achieved nothing. It's whack-a-mole. Although international agreements on money laundering have made it increasingly difficult to be as brazen as Trump was in the 1990s.

If you want someone to blame, blame the sociopaths who run Deloitte, PwC, Ernst & Young and KPMG. Who literally advertise their ability to hide money from traditional tax collection methods - and discover new ways to avoid taxation. They are active in every jurisdiction, and are as comfortable hiding funds for war criminals as they are for that guy with a 4 car garage at the end of your street. Of course they wouldn't exist without their client's greed, so it's a little chicken-and-egg.

These firms actively headhunt the best policy analysts and tax lawyers who work in government. They literally buy out the staff responsible for closing loopholes. My ex's career pathway in a nutshell was: Policy analyst in government on 5 figure salary -> help bring major tax policy change through parliament -> meet with Deloitte -> take mid 6 figure salary advising accountants on the new tax policy. That pathway bought her a house so I can't blame her.

[Love Mountain]

One of the bigger issues isn't just that Trump is a tax dodger, its his embezzlement of the Presidency that's even more outrageous.

His properties have become bazaars for collecting money directly from lobbyists, foreign officials and others seeking face time, access or favor; the records for the first time put precise dollar figures on those transactions.

At the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., a flood of new members starting in 2015 allowed him to pocket an additional $5 million a year from the business. In 2017, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association paid at least $397,602 to the Washington hotel, where the group held at least one event during its four-day World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians.

The Times was also able to take the fullest measure to date of the president’s income from overseas, where he holds ultimate sway over American diplomacy. When he took office, Mr. Trump said he would pursue no new foreign deals as president. Even so, in his first two years in the White House, his revenue from abroad totaled $73 million. And while much of that money was from his golf properties in Scotland and Ireland, some came from licensing deals in countries with authoritarian-leaning leaders or thorny geopolitics — for example, $3 million from the Philippines, $2.3 million from India and $1 million from Turkey.

Of course I don't expect conservatives to get mad about this. Hardly anything that Trump does makes them bat an eye.

[Stario]

Nothing wrong with gaming the system/exploiting the loopholes. For example, here we get 'job keeper' due to the coronavirus if for example one had his own business one can claim 'job keeper'; providing the revenue/earnings of one's business dropped due to C19; one could also still work as a public servant for a large public hospital to get his normal wages while also receiving 'job keeper'... There are plenty of people doing this.

Tax is no different if one can legally game the codes to save ducats then I say why not! As long as it's done legally...

[antaeus]

Nothing wrong with gaming the system/exploiting the loopholes. For example, here we get 'job keeper' due to the coronavirus. If for example one has their own business, one can claim 'job keeper' on their business' wages, including their own; providing the revenue/earnings of one's business dropped due to C19. One could also still work as a public servant for a large public hospital to get their normal wages from that hospital, while also receiving 'job keeper' on their wages from their own business. There are plenty of people doing this.

Here I was thinking JobKeeper was a wage subsidy. Silly me. Sorry, I had to edit your text so that I could actually understand what you're describing. I think you're describing someone who runs a business, and has a second job at a hospital. They can claim JobKeeper for their own business' wages, including their own, and also work in another job.

I don't think you're describing 'gaming' the system. You're just describing someone with a great work ethic working a lot of hours. That's a little different to hiding your earnings so that you appear to be losing money so you don't have to pay tax.

Edit. Also, your hypothetical hard working person would also be paying tax on their wages, including the JobKeeper part, and their wages from the hospital.

[AqD]

but I wonder how his supporters will react to the news. Imitate their commander-in-chief and dismiss it as fake news or accept the possibility that Donald might not have been as sincere and transparent as originally assumed?

He's either useful or useless.

Being sincere or transparent is irrelevant. If you want a law abiding citizen to be the commander of world's largest army and largest economy, there are tens of millions you could choose from.