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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

#241

Post by christophilus »

pwinnski wrote: post #210
christophilus wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant that he pays well below what you or I pay. He's in a lower tax bracket than his secretary. $1.8M on $11.5M is what? Something in the ballpark of 15%? He should be in the highest tax bracket. That's my point. The tax laws favor the wealthy, and they shouldn't.

That's a completely unrelated and distracting issue. Trump paid $750 total, which is not 15% of anything. He could have easily paid $0, as he did before becoming POTUS. His team picked a tiny number above zero starting in 2016 when he was elected. This is completely and totally unrelated to the capital gains tax rate.

It's not unrelated. My point is that the wealthy have a whole lot of loopholes when it comes to taxes, and we ought to address that.

Almost certainly, Trump used these loopholes to minimize his taxes. I assume in his case, he had a lot of losses that he was able to use to bring his over all income down well below what you or I report in a given year.

Unless Trump did something illegal (entirely possible), my point is related and not distracting.

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

#242

Post by maxlybbert »

makomk wrote: post #233
maxlybbert wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If I'm understanding the article correctly, the New York Times isn't counting the millions it found that Trump paid in alternative minimum tax over the years when making all its big, attention-grabbing viral claims about how little income tax he paid because technically alternative minimum tax is a different, seperate thing from income tax.

That makes sense.

They make a huge deal about the difference between Trump’s “I paid millions in total taxes” and their “he paid a tiny amount in income taxes,” and I overlooked where AMT would fit in that distinction.

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

#243

Post by pwinnski »

hiram112 wrote: post #50
tertiary wrote: post #11

For comparison, President Trump payed $750 in federal income tax in 2016 and 2017. I just looked it up and I, a graduate student who makes like $30k a year paid three times that amount last year.

All his properties are in corporations or limited liabilities, like almost every other business in the country. Those corporations do pay taxes. His securities, investments, etc. are in a trust, required by law, I believe, which would also pay taxes separately. He donates to charity 100% of his US government salary. I'm wondering how he even owed $750 on federal taxes.

This is wrong on many, many, many points. Please, read the article.

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

#244

Post by ModernMech »

smitty1e wrote: post #185
yread wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

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

#245

Post by phobosanomaly »

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?

That's one of the main points of the NYT article. That's why Trump is so far in debt.

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

#246

Post by scarface74 »

phobosanomaly wrote: post #245
scarface74 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That's one of the main points of the NYT article. That's why Trump is so far in debt.

That’s not exactly a tax dodge strategy to get deeper in debt. More than likely, he just isn’t a good business person and fell for the sunk cost fallacy.

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

#247

Post by panda-giddiness »

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.

This is actually an excellent, unsettled legal question. On the one hand, the Constitution provides almost no restrictions on pardons. On the other hand, there's a strong argument for precluding self-pardons based on the principle that "no man shall be the judge of his own case", despite no such principle being expressly expounded in the Constitution.

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

#248

Post by webinvest »

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.

He isn’t able to pardon himself from his obstruction of justice charges but if he steps down near the end and lets Mike Pence be president, Mike Pence can pardon him.

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

#249

Post by microcolonel »

dathanb82 wrote: post #236
maxlybbert wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I’d be interested in better understanding why Trump didn’t owe more under AM, since most regular deductions don’t apply in that case.

Upon reading the story again, I realize they literally tell you he paid over four million dollars despite only owing about 1500 bucks. I don't know why people are so upset when he literally paid 2000x more tax than he owed.

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

#250

Post by digitaltrees »

me_me_me wrote: post #187
digitaltrees wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why? Are they bad people? Cutting ties due to flavor of political leanings sounds very short sighted. My parents are religious I am not, catholic church was actively protecting pedophiles. Should I cut ties to my family??

Are they actively supporting the church in gaining power to continue the abuse? Then, yes, cut ties. It's the active support of someone damaging the world that was my point. Trump has A HALF BILLION in PERSONAL liability... that is fundamentally disqualifying from holding office because it presents a profound national security risk. At this point anyone that supports him is risking the existence of our country. Just pick another republican at this point, enough is enough.
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