NYT gets Trump's 1995 tax documents, might have avoided taxes for two decades

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Hazmat said:
I want to be so rich that my complete failures are better than everyone else's successes. Shot for the moon, and if you miss at least you don't have to pay taxes for 18 years.
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The sick part is that he really didn't earn any of it. His father bankrolled his fortune by giving him "small loans" worth millions of dollars.
 
I REALLY want this story to stick around.



Being October 1, the NYT headline for the story should have been "Surprise, bitch!"
 
So he is possibly avoiding tax AND he has lost close to a billion dollars despite all his talk about being so smart, very smart, the smartest, at finance, financing, you know, money business. Oh so smart.

Dis' gon be gud.
 
DrForester said:
I REALLY want this story yo stick around.
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Considering how his tax returns has been one of the topics that has stuck with Trump since the beginning, I think there's a good chance it will. The other thing that stuck with Trump was his racism and birther movement involvement, and that's continued even after he's 'denouncement.' The only way it's going to really go away is if Trump releases his full tax returns, but it's just not happening. He's held them this close for so long, he's not letting them out now. Even if he did as some kind of 'gotcha', there's still these tax returns where he lost a fucking billion dollars almost in just a year that calls into any question how good of a businessman he is.
 
Lord Frieza said:
Considering how his tax returns has been one of the topics that has stuck with Trump since the beginning, I think there's a good chance it will. The other thing that stuck with Trump was his racism and birther movement involvement, and that's continued even after he's 'denouncement.' The only way it's going to really go away is if Trump releases his full tax returns, but it's just not happening. He's held them this close for so long, he's not letting them out now. Even if he did as some kind of 'gotcha', there's still these tax returns where he lost a fucking billion dollars almost in just a year that calls into any question how good of a businessman he is.
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He won't release them. I can't imagine he's paying taxes now, either.
 
People in this thread haven't followed politics in 20 years.

Trump's game right now is trying to wrangle moderate GOP voters who aren't sure about him. Conservatives in this country HATE the very concept of taxes. There is no reason to think this will hurt him, IMO.

They will say "He was a good business man who did his legal duty. The problems here are the tax code." And all of the other conclusions people draw are simply too removed or opaque to matter.

The % of people who are gonna get off the couch and vote because of this revelation is probably close to 0.
We don't have a strong coalition of voters who have proven to actually care if billionaires pay taxes, and the ones who do weren't voting for Trump.
 
Staccat0 said:
People in this thread haven't followed politics in 20 years.

Trump's game right now is trying to wrangle moderate GOP voters who aren't sure about him. Conservatives in this country HATE the very concept of taxes. There is no reason to think this will hurt him, IMO.

They will say "He was a good business man who did his legal duty. The problems here are the tax code." And all of the other conclusions people draw are simply too removed or opaque to matter.

The % of people who are gonna get off the couch and vote because of this revelation is probably close to 0.
We don't have a strong coalition of voters who have proven to actually care if billionaires pay taxes, and the ones who do weren't voting for Trump.
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So the fact that he lost 1 billion dollars in a year won't factor into that? I mean, either way, it's a shitty look: he's either not paid any taxes, potentially, in 20 years, or he's a shitty ass businessman. One way or another, this is not good for Trump, and only the diehards will spin it that way. This is a boon against moderate support for Trump.
 
The spin on places like r/the_donald seems to be that Trump already talked about his big losses in 1995 in his book "The Art Of The Comeback". Don't know how true that is, though. Essentially the point is that it's not new information.
 
Piecake said:
This should be obvious, but the difference between a poor person not paying income tax and a billionaire not paying federal income tax is that the poor person simply doesnt make enough money. No one is going to think it is fair that a billionaire is paying no income tax even if it is legal. We have a progressive taxation system for a reason. We have decided that it is morally right for richer people to pay a greater share of their money in taxes and people who do not even earn enough to pay income taxes should not be burdened with that.

Moreover, a poor person who does not pay income taxes will pay a lot more of his/her total wealth to taxation by different taxes than a billionaire who doesn't pay income taxes.
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Sure. It's perfectly fine if you don't perceive it to be fair. However, we allow affluent and low-income folks to offset their federal liabilities. Furthermore, we allow countless people (including millionaires and billionaires) to hold US financial assets in offshore accounts untaxed. As a side note, obviously bank accounts within the US financial system are not literally offshore in a foreign location.

Nevertheless, we can clearly see from 1995-2015 that the US can still function and get by without making poor people and Donald Trump pay up. So, I don't understand the moral argument.
 
Host Samurai said:
And his supporters will still vote him
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I'd like to direct you to a famous quote from one of the most important judges in the history of American Jurisprudence:

"Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands." - Judge Learned Hand.
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I will not vote for Trump. I'm with Hillary. But I do not agree that it is wrong for someone to navigate tax laws effectively. There are plenty of things that make Trump a evil person and poor candidate.

Familiarity with the tax code is not one of them. If anything, it makes him a slightly stronger candidate when it comes to debates about how to reform our nation's taxation system. I'm 100% against Trump, but I'm not going to pretend that everything he does is wrong or be fake-outraged for having a tax efficient business. Not paying taxes is not a failure on his part, but rather a failure on the part of regulators and politicians. And he's correct to criticize them for the way they set up the IRC. Our current tax system drives businesses to other nations and it keeps domestic corporations from bringing their foreign income back into the United States.
 
Keasar said:
So he is possibly avoiding tax AND he has lost close to a billion dollars despite all his talk about being so smart, very smart, the smartest, at finance, financing, you know, money business. Oh so smart.

Dis' gon be gud.
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Don't forget about the alleged ties with Russia and encouraging people to go find Lisa Machado's sex tape. When are the conservatives going to chastise Trump for encouraging America to watch porn? Some Christian church member mad as shit about having to explain what a sex tape is to their 14 year old son.

I want to be on some rich so that I can invent ways to not pay taxes. Clearly nothing happens to millionaires past the 500 mark so this is fine. The Republican party covers the 100+ millionaires by promoting tax cuts for "small businesses" so Trump exercised the options available to him in order to "maintain his wealth".

*thinks about it...*

Then again, how many millions do you need? After you've flown every plane, driven every car, purchased a great house, then what else is there to do with the money? Trump is not taxed 70 percent of his income anyway so pay your damn taxes.

*realizes this historically unprecedented fuckery and gets mad*

I'M HATING gotdammit.

Why do I have to pay taxes if Trump doesn't? Trump has hundreds of millions to pull from but refuses to part with a measly amount. Sell off some property or cash in some stock to pay your damn taxes.

Feds and State stay tapping my pockets before the money gets into my hands but Trump has the privilege to tell everyone to fuck off. We need Hilary to become President and have Elizabeth Warren close all these loopholes.
 
For me it's not so much that he didn't pay taxes, I think most people assume that's what has happened. It's that it's possible for someone to actually do that. We shouldn't be ok with putting such a massive tax burden on the middle class and small businesses. It's why I get so upset when I hear about "trickle down" and tax cuts for the wealthy. Those people already pay so little, why would we want them to pay even less? Are there any studies on creating a flat tax and dumping this progressive system and all of it's loopholes?
 
Lord Frieza said:
So the fact that he lost 1 billion dollars in a year won't factor into that? I mean, either way, it's a shitty look: he's either not paid any taxes, potentially, in 20 years, or he's a shitty ass businessman. One way or another, this is not good for Trump, and only the diehards will spin it that way. This is a boon against moderate support for Trump.
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"Then he must be bad at business" is a weak line of argument, because he is clearly worth a lot today. You are asking people to ignore the tangible evidence of today in favor of some incomplete information from two decades ago.

I'm not sure where so-called moderates fall on the question of fairness over not paying taxes. Warren Buffett has become something of a hero of the left for arguing that billionaires should pay more in taxes. When Republicans ask why he doesn't just choose to pay more, he says that it is his job to take advantage of the laws on the books, and that the solution is to change the laws, not to expect billionaires to pay more than they are required to. It is the exact same argument with Trump. My intuition is that a lot of people do think it's smart to avoid taxes when you can do so legally, because Americans in general tend to lean more toward individualism than collectivism. So I am skeptical that this line of attack will do much damage among voters either, aside from maybe energizing Clinton supporters a little more.

I suspect that the real damage from the story will be less about the actual facts, and more about keeping Trump on the defensive (since he is prone to doing stupid stuff in that situation) and to keep the doubts about what else might be in the taxes in the news - sort of analogous to the attacks on the Clinton Foundation.
 
tokkun said:
"Then he must be bad at business" is a weak line of argument, because he is clearly worth a lot today. You are asking people to ignore the tangible evidence of today in favor of some incomplete information from two decades ago.

I'm not sure where so-called moderates fall on the question of fairness over not paying taxes. Warren Buffett has become something of a hero of the left for arguing that billionaires should pay more in taxes. When Republicans ask why he doesn't just choose to pay more, he says that it is his job to take advantage of the laws on the books, and that the solution is to change the laws, not to expect billionaires to pay more than they are required to. It is the exact same argument with Trump. My intuition is that a lot of people do think it's smart to avoid taxes when you can do so legally, because Americans in general tend to lean more toward individualism than collectivism. So I am skeptical that this line of attack will do much damage among voters either, aside from maybe energizing Clinton supporters a little more.

I suspect that the real damage from the story will be less about the actual facts, and more about keeping Trump on the defensive (since he is prone to doing stupid stuff in that situation) and to keep the doubts about what else might be in the taxes in the news - sort of analogous to the attacks on the Clinton Foundation.
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Is he worth a lot? We don't know, because he won't release his tax returns for some mysterious reason.
 
Staccat0 said:
People in this thread haven't followed politics in 20 years.

Trump's game right now is trying to wrangle moderate GOP voters who aren't sure about him. Conservatives in this country HATE the very concept of taxes. There is no reason to think this will hurt him, IMO.

They will say "He was a good business man who did his legal duty. The problems here are the tax code." And all of the other conclusions people draw are simply too removed or opaque to matter.

The % of people who are gonna get off the couch and vote because of this revelation is probably close to 0.
We don't have a strong coalition of voters who have proven to actually care if billionaires pay taxes, and the ones who do weren't voting for Trump.
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People don't like to pay their own taxes, but they generally hate it when they think that other people aren't paying their fair share.
I have no idea how much impact this will have, I generally think that most people had pretty much made up their mind at this point barring something really really crazy, but I don't think a whole lot of Americans are cool with (alleged) billionaires paying no taxes.


But honestly, if anything, him losing so much money is going to have a bigger impact.
 
NYT has been killing Trump this election cycle lol.

So much for those accusations of bias because the reporting on Hillary's emails.
 
tokkun said:
"Then he must be bad at business" is a weak line of argument, because he is clearly worth a lot today. You are asking people to ignore the tangible evidence of today in favor of some incomplete information from two decades ago.

I'm not sure where so-called moderates fall on the question of fairness over not paying taxes. Warren Buffett has become something of a hero of the left for arguing that billionaires should pay more in taxes. When Republicans ask why he doesn't just choose to pay more, he says that it is his job to take advantage of the laws on the books, and that the solution is to change the laws, not to expect billionaires to pay more than they are required to. It is the exact same argument with Trump. My intuition is that a lot of people do think it's smart to avoid taxes when you can do so legally, because Americans in general tend to lean more toward individualism than collectivism. So I am skeptical that this line of attack will do much damage among voters either, aside from maybe energizing Clinton supporters a little more.

I suspect that the real damage from the story will be less about the actual facts, and more about keeping Trump on the defensive (since he is prone to doing stupid stuff in that situation) and to keep the doubts about what else might be in the taxes in the news - sort of analogous to the attacks on the Clinton Foundation.
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pretty much. people already knew he was horrible in the 90's
 
Ithil said:
Is he worth a lot? We don't know, because he won't release his tax returns for some mysterious reason.
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We know he is worth a lot, we just don't know if he is worth $10B (or whatever the latest number he has claimed).

The Clinton campaign is blasting out fundraising emails about how donors need to give more because Trump may put $50M of his own money into his campaign. You can't say that and then turn around and claim the guy is not rich.
 
Staccat0 said:
People in this thread haven't followed politics in 20 years.

Trump's game right now is trying to wrangle moderate GOP voters who aren't sure about him. Conservatives in this country HATE the very concept of taxes. There is no reason to think this will hurt him, IMO.

They will say "He was a good business man who did his legal duty. The problems here are the tax code." And all of the other conclusions people draw are simply too removed or opaque to matter.

The % of people who are gonna get off the couch and vote because of this revelation is probably close to 0.
We don't have a strong coalition of voters who have proven to actually care if billionaires pay taxes, and the ones who do weren't voting for Trump.
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It won't hurt him with conservatives but it will hurt him with others. Also trump has apparently been a miserable business failure for many years. The failure part is worse than the tax part.

The more dems cast doubt on his business success, the more unhinged he will get. Rants like last night can cause him 2 or 3 points on Election Day. Asshole failure trump can motivate non conservatives and get some conservatives to stay home. The tax revelation won't though, true.
 
tokkun said:
"Then he must be bad at business" is a weak line of argument, because he is clearly worth a lot today. You are asking people to ignore the tangible evidence of today in favor of some incomplete information from two decades ago.

I'm not sure where so-called moderates fall on the question of fairness over not paying taxes. Warren Buffett has become something of a hero of the left for arguing that billionaires should pay more in taxes. When Republicans ask why he doesn't just choose to pay more, he says that it is his job to take advantage of the laws on the books, and that the solution is to change the laws, not to expect billionaires to pay more than they are required to. It is the exact same argument with Trump. My intuition is that a lot of people do think it's smart to avoid taxes when you can do so legally, because Americans in general tend to lean more toward individualism than collectivism. So I am skeptical that this line of attack will do much damage among voters either, aside from maybe energizing Clinton supporters a little more.

I suspect that the real damage from the story will be less about the actual facts, and more about keeping Trump on the defensive (since he is prone to doing stupid stuff in that situation) and to keep the doubts about what else might be in the taxes in the news - sort of analogous to the attacks on the Clinton Foundation.
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Is it clear, though? The fact that he worth reveal his tax returns, and it's one of the few controversies to follow Trump to this point with still being talked makes me think it's not very clear to most.
 
giga said:
Ctu9KtjWYAA7jhE.jpg


RG0BS1U.gif
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Trump is a horrible candidate, but isn't this tax information stolen in the same way that DNC'S emails were stolen?

At least Trump was a private citizen, the DNC acts as a cog in the democratic process. Clinton was an officer in our government. If Clinton's emails were hacked and released there should be no question it serves a public good at this point.
 
JABEE said:
Trump is a horrible candidate, but isn't this tax information stolen in the same way that DNC'S emails were stolen?

At least Trump was a private citizen, the DNC acts as a cog in the democratic process. Clinton was an officer in our government. If Clinton's emails were hacked and released there should be no question it serves a public good at this point.
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Who knows if stolen? If it was Marla those documents are hers as much as Donald's.

The times didn't steal them. They opened their mail.
 
HerbertBirdsfoot said:
Who knows if stolen? If it was Marla those documents are hers as much as Donald's.

The times didn't steal them. They opened their mail.
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Just like the Snowden leaks and the Huffington Post

The only reason to criticize the source is to take heat off the truth.

We need more transparency from figures running for or performing in the highest public offices.
 
JABEE said:
Trump is a horrible candidate, but isn't this tax information stolen in the same way that DNC'S emails were stolen?

At least Trump was a private citizen, the DNC acts as a cog in the democratic process. Clinton was an officer in our government. If Clinton's emails were hacked and released there should be no question it serves a public good at this point.
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I'd say that getting it from a whistleblower and then having third parties confirm its authenticity is different from a foreign power illegally obtaining the information and releasing it through their own mouthpieces.

The only way it's similar is if someone in the Trump org was coerced to give the info, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
 
JABEE said:
Trump is a horrible candidate, but isn't this tax information stolen in the same way that DNC'S emails were stolen?

At least Trump was a private citizen, the DNC acts as a cog in the democratic process. Clinton was an officer in our government. If Clinton's emails were hacked and released there should be no question it serves a public good at this point.
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By far, one of the biggest bullshit double standard posts I've seen. Literally, 'You can do it to her, but not him.' Like, not even trying to hide it.
 
At this point it's clear there is something in his full returns worse than a businessman that loses a billion a year and pays no tax. I wonder what it is. Will be fun to watch Hillary speculate aloud next Sunday night.
 
call_kotaku said:
I'd say that getting it from a whistleblower and then having third parties confirm its authenticity is different from a foreign power illegally obtaining the information and releasing it through their own mouthpieces.

The only way it's similar is if someone in the Trump org was coerced to give the info, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
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The source only really matters for those invested in the political horse race. What matters is authenticity, which no one seems to be trying poke holes in or clarify the truth.
 
Lord Frieza said:
By far, one of the biggest bullshit double standard posts I've seen. Literally, 'You can do it to her, but not him.' Like, not even trying to hide it.
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I'm happy. Trump shouldn't be able to lie about this stuff if he wants to run for President. Public officials should be held to a higher standard of transparency.
 
I think people are missing the larger point, which is that Donald Trump is either unwilling or unable to prove that his profits from 1992-2010 are larger than ~900 million. That's only 50 million a year.
 
Bringing losses forward in taxation is absolutely legit, the real revelation here is that he has earned so little in the last 15 years that he can still use those old losses from a single year to offset all his gains today.
 
Chittagong said:
Bringing losses forward in taxation is absolutely legit, the real revelation here is that he has earned so little in the last 15 years that he can still use those old losses from a single year to offset all his gains today.
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Was that revealed? I thought that was just speculation because we don't have his tax returns after 1995?
 
Deku Tree said:
Was that revealed? I thought that was just speculation because we don't have his tax returns after 1995?
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Yeah I was just going by the suggestion that he hasn't paid any tax, which would mean his cumulative earnings must be less than that single loss.
 
Lord Frieza said:
Is it clear, though? The fact that he worth reveal his tax returns, and it's one of the few controversies to follow Trump to this point with still being talked makes me think it's not very clear to most.
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It is beyond clear, unless your threshold for "worth a lot" is in the multi-billions.

HerbertBirdsfoot said:
At this point it's clear there is something in his full returns worse than a businessman that loses a billion a year and pays no tax. I wonder what it is. Will be fun to watch Hillary speculate aloud next Sunday night.
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Not necessarily. Even without a bombshell, there would certainly be enough material for smaller stories to occupy the news for a couple weeks. It would be death by a thousand cuts.
 
Trojita said:
$916 million?

What a loser.
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"WRONG." ...lol.

I can't fucking do this anymore. It's clear that nothing is going to convince his supporters that he's the WRONG person for the job. And I also can no longer abide by the argument of "they both suck." While I maybe believed that for a time, it is now abundantly clear that one is better than the other, by a YUUUUGE margin.

And not that it even matters to some people anymore, but here's a video featuring an architect who was screwed out of his agreed upon fee for building a clubhouse at one of Trump's golf clubs. You think he cares about the American working person? Fucking think again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cHZUCADYxY
 
.@brianstelter asks Susanne Craig if the NY Times is sitting on more Trump tax documents. She replies: "No comment"
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As I expected, no media outlet would drop everything at once. They will hype this up and release in batches.
 
Shouldn't he be done by now. Like ineligible to be running and stuff?

Apparently there's stuff on Hillary coming out soon. This election is going to be a mess.
 
hey_it's_that_dog said:
People keep saying this, but isn't the counterpoint that if you can lose a billion dollars and still be in business 20 years later, you might be sort of good at business?

I don't think losing a lot of money at once necessarily means you're a bad businessperson. I'm not saying this proves Trump is good at business by any means, but one colossal loss doesn't disprove it. His successes and failures over time would be a much better indicator of his skill, IMO.
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They are an indicator of mediocrity.

The biggest mediocrity.
 
Just watched Giuliani on State of the Union. Wow, this guy is such a huge asshole. Jake Tapper had a shook look when Giuliani didn't want to answer if he, himself, paid taxes.

This is such a bad look. Romney and 13% tax rate was bad. This is so much worse.
 
Crazyorloco said:
Shouldn't he be done by now. Like ineligible to be running and stuff?

Apparently there's stuff on Hillary coming out soon. This election is going to be a mess.
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What could it even be (if true)? At worst it's emails arguing Bernie shouldn't be allowed to run for Dem primary as former independent, something along those lines.
 
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