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

nytimes.com

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

#261

Post by digitaltrees »

ModernMech wrote: post #244
smitty1e wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tasteless joke, or substantive call for a privacy invasion? One must to keep in mind that cognitive bias has us parsing those we dislike quite literally, while giving those we fancy a pass. And that's true in all 57 states.

> Tasteless joke, or substantive call for a privacy invasion? He was pressed by a reporter after that and he doubled and tripled down on what he said. That's not really what someone who was joking would do.

Yes Katie Turr literally asked if he was joking and later said she was shocked but wanted to confirm.

It’s amazing how people try to reposition history and how effective it is when they do it because the facts are clear and on video.

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

#262

Post by digitaltrees »

cm2187 wrote: post #190
ENOTTY wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That may be the case but I would be surprised the NYT would know, unless they have seen the terms of the loan.

No. Recourse loans are listed on tax filings separately from non-recourse. The personal guarantee means it shows up on personal income statements. So no other records are needed.

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

#263

Post by digitaltrees »

adamiscool8 wrote: post #115
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.

But there's no indication presented this won't all be easily re-financeable, rolled over as most corporate debt is.

The only bank that was lending to him, deutsche bank, literally had a board meeting and investigation to determine how he was able to bypass internal controls and get more loans after they had halted lending to him (he basically got the private wealth division to keep going after the commercial division said no more). If that is the most favorable lender left, future loans from anyone seem unlikely.

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

#264

Post by digitaltrees »

softawre wrote: post #220
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.

But he has 3.5b in assets. So that gives him about a 2.5b net worth. He can pay it.

Does he though? He valued one property as $200M that was then later valued at $18M. He has a well documented history of inflating value estimates. He even claimed Trump Tower had more floors than it does (something so easy to count). So I would not just take the valuations at face value.

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

#266

Post by digitaltrees »

koheripbal wrote: post #215
fjdjsmsm wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article lists several examples of things that go beyond avoidance. He paid millions in mysterious ‘consulting’ fees that appear to have gone to his kids, despite them being employees. He declared that he had no financial benefit in a business he walked away from despite still owning 5 percent of it. ...

Again, a lot of these things are pretty common in business. My Dad has a business, and pays me a consultancy fee. I pay consultancy fees to my wife. None of this is unusual for a family business.

You can’t do that while also being an employee.

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

#267

Post by digitaltrees »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #63
wwright wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, which IMO is a shitty thing to do at this scale

To play devil's advocate, at what scale should I instruct my CPA not to take every deduction I'm entitled to?

The evidence indicates that Trump is literally inventing fake deductions.

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

#268

Post by digitaltrees »

maxlybbert wrote: post #89
microcolonel wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't understand why “tax avoidance” is meant to sound so naughty. Almost everyone avoids taxes, almost every time they might be subject to a tax; some people are just better at it. When you fail to collect taxes from somebody who is following the law, that is a matter for your tax code, not a moral failing of the filer.

Judge Learned Hand (not the Supreme Court, but often quoted; I'm sure partly for the name): "Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes" (Gregory v. Helvering, 1934) "Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging o…

Most of that was before the two tier tax system emerged, on for labor—which can not be avoided under any circumstances—and one for business owners which can actually result in negative tax rates.

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

#269

Post by digitaltrees »

scarface74 wrote: post #193
phobosanomaly wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm thinking more in the category of buying a failing company in anticipation of using it's annual losses to create tax benefits. The level at which you and I are engineering this stuff is kid's play. But that's kind of the idea. If you have extensive amounts of money, you hire a team to engineer getting you out of paying your fair share, I think the average person has the right to be upset about that, since all of t…

You don’t buy money losing companies to have a smaller offset from paying taxes. Where would the money come from to keep the company in business?

Umm. Yes you do, there are literally markets for tax credits that you can buy for pennies on the dollar.

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

#270

Post by digitaltrees »

jimbob45 wrote: post #182
spiritplumber wrote: post #9

Will it make a difference?

Hard no. This has been an ongoing plot line for 5 years now for those of us who avidly follow politics. There’s nothing here that I would be able to explain to anyone that would surprise them. The real story is that they got leaked at all. I know there’s a huge left tile on HN so take your blue hat off for a minute and just think about this. The DNC has lusted after Trump’s returns for five years now. They finally ac…

What evidence do you have that the DNC was involved? That’s a serious allegation.

What about claiming they had any hand in deciding when this should be released?

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