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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

#211

Post by pwinnski »

throwawaysea wrote: post #103
yokaze wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends on the public interest. Are we talking about random John Does taxes which has a total of X dollars income/wealth? X alone might be large enough warranting some public interest, on top of that, it isn't random Joe, it is a well known public figure, which derives its publicity in the very facts the article is investigating: his claims of personal wealth and business acumen. Finally, that person is actually…

But it is still his finances as a private citizen, and not - for example - the details of some government agency. A matter being of interest to a subset of all citizens doesn’t justify its disclosure. We should either require disclosure by law (perhaps to an auditing firm instead of the public) or treat this as a purposeful and malicious leak of private, confidential information. I don’t think news media should get a…

If a person has enormous debt, they are declined a security clearance. The fear is that whoever holds that debt has too much leverage over the debtor, and so could theoretically make them act however they wished.

These records reveal that Donald Trump has close to, or just over, one Billion dollars in debt for which he is personally on the hook, to unknown lenders, which are due within the next four years.

That is in the public interest.

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

#212

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

TooCreative wrote: post #199
yosito wrote: post #196

This is important news, but I don't understand the insistence of some people to post political news to this website. Seriously, this has very little to do with tech. Post it to Reddit or Twitter. I do not come here to read about Trump.

HN is not a tech news site. HN is pretty much the only place on the web where intelligent discussion takes place. That is why I hope for every news I am interested in to be discussed here. Reddit discussions are complete garbage. The top comment on r/news for this article is this one line: "That's $750 more than I thought he paid.". It has over 19k likes.

It may be better than Reddit, but it's still not designed for political discussion. The voting algorithms lead to echo chamber formation or vapid, emotion-driven comments being given positive feedback without careful moderation. Human nature combined with anonymity means comments can dissolve into pointless bickering. Basically, it would require a ton of moderation(with the discussions picking up on the biases of the moderators), and even then it would still devolve with many comments about illegal immigration, gender issues, or pretty much any other social issue that involves identity.

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

#213

Post by acdha »

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.

You mean other than all of the past problems getting credit which forced him to seek out foreign funding in the first place? His businesses lose money and having so many bankruptcies where his partners have been left holding the bag is going to deter most bankers unless they have other ways to recoup their money.

Here’s an old report about his credit rating - note the “likely to default”:

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/trumps-business-credit-...

Here’s an example of what it took for him to get loans in the past:

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

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

#214

Post by koheripbal »

Anon84 wrote: post #91
tiziniano wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better show tax loss and not pay taxes on it.

Al Capone thought the same thing

Al Capone didn't declare any of his earnings - that's a big difference.

My business also shoes a tax loss almost every year - that's just normal good money management.

Amazon showed a tax loss literally every year ever.

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

#215

Post by koheripbal »

fjdjsmsm wrote: post #118
kache_ wrote: post #17

Reminder; tax avoidance != tax fraud.

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.

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

#216

Post by koheripbal »

wreck wrote: post #51
kache_ wrote: post #17

Reminder; tax avoidance != tax fraud.

This is the more important part IMO: "Mr. Trump’s businesses appear to have benefited from his position, and his far-flung holdings have created potential conflicts between his own financial interests and the nation’s diplomatic interests"

Unfortunately, this lacks specifics. WHICH assets? Which conflict? Which diplomatic effort?

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

#217

Post by koheripbal »

yosito wrote: post #196

This is important news, but I don't understand the insistence of some people to post political news to this website. Seriously, this has very little to do with tech. Post it to Reddit or Twitter. I do not come here to read about Trump.

If there were more details, or if he was doing something complex and interesting, I'd say post it.

...but everything I see in the article is normal tax avoidance that pretty much every family business does.

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

#218

Post by koheripbal »

bmitc wrote: post #111

If Trump applied for even the most basic national security related job that required the lowest level of security clearance, he absolutely would be denied. And yet, this man is president of the United States.

Because the government doesn't get to decide who can be President.

It's up to the people.

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

#219

Post by maxerickson »

tertiary wrote: post #102
ENOTTY wrote: post #30

Great thread here that covers his loans https://twitter.com/DanAlexander21/status/131034616181606400... EDIT: I accidentally a 'that'

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.

Is that a net position? I am not interested enough in the further details to try to figure it out for myself, but his net position is more important than the total debt.

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

#220

Post by softawre »

tertiary wrote: post #102
ENOTTY wrote: post #30

Great thread here that covers his loans https://twitter.com/DanAlexander21/status/131034616181606400... EDIT: I accidentally a 'that'

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.
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