Trump’s Taxes Show Chronic Losses and Years of Income Tax Avoidance • Hacker News Board

Re: Trump’s Taxes Show Chronic Losses and Years of Income Tax Avoidance

#131

Post by rrss » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 1:12 AM UTC

jmcguckin wrote: post #112

pontus wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one of the issues is that he has simultaneously told the opposite story to his lenders, making himself look wealthier than he is in order to score loans. This, is fraud.

When I bought my house (borrowing roughly 200K) the bank wanted several years of tax returns and basically put my finances under a microscope. Pretty much everything except the anal probe. So, you think a bank that's going to lend Trump 100 Million isn't going to examine his finances in greater detail?

Yes.

> In 2003, Deutsche Bank helped Mr. Trump’s casino company sell hundreds of millions of dollars in bonds.

> Mr. Trump’s company defaulted in 2004, leaving Deutsche Bank’s clients with deep losses. The bank’s investment division that sold the bonds vowed to not do business again with Mr. Trump

> A year later, though, Mr. Trump approached another part of the investment division for a $640 million loan to build a skyscraper in Chicago. It made the loan — and in 2008, Mr. Trump defaulted and sued Deutsche Bank. That prompted the whole investment division to sever ties with Mr. Trump.

> And then, three years after his previous default, Deutsche Bank started lending to him again, this time through the private-banking division that catered to the superrich. In fact, it lent Mr. Trump money that he used to repay what he still owed Deutsche Bank’s investment division for the Chicago loan.

> In 2016, the board of directors commissioned a report into how the bank had become so enmeshed with Mr. Trump

> The report, prepared by the board’s integrity committee, concluded that Deutsche’s private-banking division, which catered to very rich individuals, was so determined to win business from big-name clients that its executives had looked past Mr. Trump’s history of stiffing his lenders

So, try this: default on your ~200k mortgage. take out another, larger mortgage with the same bank. default on that one too, and then sue the bank for damages. then get a loan from the same bank to pay back your remaining debt from the second mortgage.

I'm skeptical that you could pull this off, and yet Donald Trump somehow managed to get comparable loans from Deutsche Bank.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/business/deutsche-bank-do...

Re: Trump’s Taxes Show Chronic Losses and Years of Income Tax Avoidance

#132

Post by jmeister » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 1:32 AM UTC

digitaltrees wrote: post #126

tertiary wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those that don't want to click through: He is on the hook personally for hundreds of millions of dollars in debt that will come due next few years during his potential second term with no obvious way of paying it off. There's no way of knowing who has control of it. Edit: and also from the thread, he owes > $1 Billion in total to lenders.

How can anyone seriously support him being in a position of power if this is true. The opportunity to buy that debt and call it as leverage to extract political gain is so easy and obvious. Does any of this debt trade on any market? If so a hedge fund could basically have puppet strings on the federal government.

How can NYT say America was actually founded in 1619?

To his base, elite east coast “Fake News” media has no credibility whatsoever, because of blatant culture-war pandering like 1619.

Re: Trump’s Taxes Show Chronic Losses and Years of Income Tax Avoidance

#133

Post by xellisx » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 1:34 AM UTC

mhh__ wrote: post #60

xellisx wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that it should be law that the finances of the people at these levels of governence (maybe even down to the city level) be open to the public to review.

I'm not overly against the idea that all tax returns should be public to some extent, certainly for politicians.

Was definitely not saying everyone's, just anyone that an elected official, or has control public policy and/or spending of tax money.

Re: Trump’s Taxes Show Chronic Losses and Years of Income Tax Avoidance

#134

Post by dhab » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 1:36 AM UTC

A related question: Can a president pre-emptively pardon himself? I think there was some deal being worked on Jeff Epstein's case where that could have happened.

Re: Trump’s Taxes Show Chronic Losses and Years of Income Tax Avoidance

#135

Post by ENOTTY » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 1:37 AM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #120

tertiary wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those that don't want to click through: He is on the hook personally for hundreds of millions of dollars in debt that will come due next few years during his potential second term with no obvious way of paying it off. There's no way of knowing who has control of it. Edit: and also from the thread, he owes > $1 Billion in total to lenders.

Commercial real estate loans are often non recourse. You lend to the holding company who owns the property. If it fails you don’t necessarily have a claim on the owners of that company. And I would expect covid to have decimated the value of commercial real estate, particularly hotels.

This is briefly discussed in the NYT article. Apparently some of the loans are borrowed against his personal holdings.

Re: Trump’s Taxes Show Chronic Losses and Years of Income Tax Avoidance

#136

Post by pravda » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 1:39 AM UTC

boringg wrote: post #116

pravda wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am reminded of the joke, "Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?" I know how the information was gained: someone leaked it! I am surprised it took this long. Was it an IRS employee who leaked it in violation of federal law? Was it someone at the accounting firm Trump uses? Maybe we will find out some day, maybe not. To me the most amazing revelation is that he got paid nearly HALF-A-BILLION for the Appren…

Agreed about the apprentice, that’s quite a bit.

I was wrong, he only earned $197.3 million from the Apprentice.

There was $230 million in "Endorsement and licensing deals that followed the show’s debut"

So it is not like NBC paid him half a billion. It was only 1/5th of a billion.

Re: Trump’s Taxes Show Chronic Losses and Years of Income Tax Avoidance

#137

Post by xenospn » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 1:41 AM UTC

andrei_says_ wrote: post #129

digitaltrees wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can anyone seriously support him being in a position of power if this is true. The opportunity to buy that debt and call it as leverage to extract political gain is so easy and obvious. Does any of this debt trade on any market? If so a hedge fund could basically have puppet strings on the federal government.

Simple: it is not “true” to those who support him. They are told a completely different story - one of a successful businessman with unbending will, unfairly persecuted by the media, here to manifest God’s plan. Yes, including that last one. Talk to any fundamental Christian on why.

I am absolutely positive that they will vote for him even if he publicly endorses Biden himself.

Re: Trump’s Taxes Show Chronic Losses and Years of Income Tax Avoidance

#138

Post by mikequinlan » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 1:43 AM UTC

refurb wrote: post #130

tertiary wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those that don't want to click through: He is on the hook personally for hundreds of millions of dollars in debt that will come due next few years during his potential second term with no obvious way of paying it off. There's no way of knowing who has control of it. Edit: and also from the thread, he owes > $1 Billion in total to lenders.

What is his net worth? I didn't see it in the article. Whether or not his debts are an issue really depends on how much wealth he has to back it up.

The article is based on income tax returns which only deal with income and don't show net worth.

Re: Trump’s Taxes Show Chronic Losses and Years of Income Tax Avoidance

#139

Post by kthejoker2 » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 1:43 AM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #120

tertiary wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those that don't want to click through: He is on the hook personally for hundreds of millions of dollars in debt that will come due next few years during his potential second term with no obvious way of paying it off. There's no way of knowing who has control of it. Edit: and also from the thread, he owes > $1 Billion in total to lenders.

Commercial real estate loans are often non recourse. You lend to the holding company who owns the property. If it fails you don’t necessarily have a claim on the owners of that company. And I would expect covid to have decimated the value of commercial real estate, particularly hotels.

Nope, we're talking about personal loans, personally guaranteed by him. No intermediary, no holding company.

Re: Trump’s Taxes Show Chronic Losses and Years of Income Tax Avoidance

#140

Post by mikequinlan » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 1:45 AM UTC

dhab wrote: post #134

A related question: Can a president pre-emptively pardon himself? I think there was some deal being worked on Jeff Epstein's case where that could have happened.

The Constitution doesn't restrict presidential pardons except in cases of impeachment. If Trump pardoned himself I am sure eventually the Supreme Court would have to rule on it.