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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

#171

Post by digitaltrees »

mandevil wrote: post #75
kache_ wrote: post #17

Reminder; tax avoidance != tax fraud.

If you read the article, you'd see that there is a critical thing where he got a 70 million dollar refund, in a manner which probably violated IRS Guidelines. This has been debated since 2011, and has still not reached a decision. If the IRS (and Congress, since they need to sign off on all refunds for individuals > 2 million) declare that he was not entitled to that refund (which from the article seems like the way…

No conflict of interest there. Nothing to see folks. This is total BS. At this point I am about to cut ties with my family that supports Trump. This is beyond anything approaching reason.

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

#172

Post by silexia »

jonstewart wrote: post #90
rsstack wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter-reminder: tax fraud /= tax avoidance. The IRS, and Congress through the Tax committee, will judge that.

Right. I’m sure he, as POTUS, and his political appointees haven’t done anything to interfere with the decade-long IRS audit into his refund.

This is an absolutely critical point. Trump appears to be subverting institutions ranging from inspector generals to the military to the post office. I bet the IRS is his prime target.

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

#173

Post by digitaltrees »

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?

The banks that originated his loans stood to make a percent profit when they resold them as securities on a secondary market. The bank probably did Less diligence on him than on your mortgage because they’re not regulated on such loans.

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

#174

Post by austhrow743 »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #148
apta wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that mean that every government employee should not be allowed to avoid taxes?

I’m of the opinion that no one should avoid taxes, so if you’re asking just about government employees, then the answer is still yes, they shouldn’t be allowed to.

How much do you choose to pay in taxes? How much do you think others should choose to? All discretionary income? All charitable giving? Some fixed percentage?

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

#175

Post by maxlybbert »

phobosanomaly wrote: post #168
maxlybbert wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You overpay during the year, but when you file your returns, do you intentionally deduct less than you’re allowed, or intentionally skip tax credits? I personally would prefer to have the government owe me money than owe the government money, but I do my best to make sure my taxes are accurate and I’m not in the hook for any more than I truly owe. Things like the child tax credit aren’t really meant to encourage part…

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…

I wouldn’t claim to be a tax expert. I was responding to a comment that used the term “overpay taxes” differently from how I would. Sure, if you overpay your estimated tax during the year, that’s overpaying. So is failing to use deductions and credits that you qualify for. I only wanted to clarify the distinction.

I’m happy to add that it’s no surprise people consider taxes when they make decisions, and in some cases tax incentives are specifically designed to change people’s behavior. It’s silly to be scandalized when their behavior actually does change. Not everybody agrees on which tax avoidance behaviors are perfectly acceptable (e.g., buying alternative fuels) and which are pure evil.

When people have a lot to lose, it’s no surprise that they hire tax experts. The US government gave up trying to design a system that always gives reasonable outcomes, and instead created the alternative minimum tax specifically for the scenario of rich people getting too creative with credits and deductions. If Trump truly received several million dollars of income in 2016 and legally paid a grand total of $750, then the alternative minimum tax isn’t doing its job and should be reworked.

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

#176

Post by notyourwork »

tiziniano wrote: post #167
notyourwork wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you uncomfortable with the method of finding the truth? I may not agree with specific methods used but if credible then the guilty are guilty.

Yeah, imagine someone did this to Obama or the Clinton Foundation.... The mediatic outrage would be unmeasurable

What are you suggesting? Growing up I was always told where there’s smoke there’s fire and this administration looks like it’s been smoldering since 2016.

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

#177

Post by phobosanomaly »

maxlybbert wrote: post #175
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…

I wouldn’t claim to be a tax expert. I was responding to a comment that used the term “overpay taxes” differently from how I would. Sure, if you overpay your estimated tax during the year, that’s overpaying. So is failing to use deductions and credits that you qualify for. I only wanted to clarify the distinction. I’m happy to add that it’s no surprise people consider taxes when they make decisions, and in some cases…

From my experience, there is a lot of anger generated when those who have so much, avoid paying even the bare minimum compared to those who have very little.

The average lower-to-middle-income family with a mortgage and a couple of kids, sure they have a lot to worry about and they really need that money. Pay as little taxes as you can because what you save goes to feeding your kids, paying for college, and putting gas in the minivan.

Someone who is essentially playing a game (Trump) to maximize one number (income) while minimizing another (tax), I don't think a lot of people have a lot of sympathy for. Accumulating wealth really is a game at that point, no different than speedrunning RE2, or trying to YOLO options on Robinhood. It's not like Ivanka is putting the money into diapers, summer camp for the kids, and tires on the minivan.

In that sense, Trump doesn't have a lot to lose (anything to lose, really - just monopoly money). It's just numbers in a spreadsheet, it's not your kid's Christmas presents, or fixing the water heater, or getting a new set of tires on the family car. It's paying off Stormy Daniels who you slept with 4 months after your wife gave birth, Jared getting a fancy new tie, and your son Eric getting to go to Africa to shoot some new animal.

People are pissed. I think they have good reason to be. The system benefits those who are playing a game, and hurts those who are actually playing with real odds.

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

#178

Post by twmahna »

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.

> The opportunity to buy that debt and call it as leverage to extract political gain is so easy and obvious

If this happened, you don't think he'd be able to get another institution (or GOP constituent) to re-finance/backstop his debt for him?

2-300m in debt is a lot but his businesses pull in 4-500m in annual revenue. It's not a crazy debt-to-income ratio.

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

#179

Post by deelowe »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #148
apta wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that mean that every government employee should not be allowed to avoid taxes?

I’m of the opinion that no one should avoid taxes, so if you’re asking just about government employees, then the answer is still yes, they shouldn’t be allowed to.

Explain the difference between tax "avoidance" and tax "evasion."

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

#180

Post by yread »

koolba wrote: post #114
jeffbee wrote: post #53

The HN angle on this article is the NYT accounts system wasn't prepared for the deluge of subscriptions, fell over, served 500s for hours, and now they made the article free-to-all (as far as I can tell) in response. Get these journos some capacity planners and SREs.

I would have thought the HN angle is where do you draw the line between journalism and data leaks or identity theft? As much as large parts of the public wants to see his taxes, that doesn’t meant a newspaper can hide behind journalism to act as an intermediary to leak them. If that’s the standard then I’m sure it’d be fine for an intern at Joe Biden’s doctors office to leak his full medical records right? EDIT: I fi…

On the other hand he called for a foreign country to hack into his opponents' email and release all of it. So, he obviously doesn't value privacy that much
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