Posted on 10/02/2016 1:01:46 PM PDT by Kaslin
There’s only one news story popping up for the Sunday morning circus and it’s the long anticipated October surprise from the New York Times. Late Saturday evening they released a partial set of state tax documents belonging to Donald Trump which show a nearly one billion dollar business loss he took more than twenty years ago. As Business Insider explains, this factoid allows them to speculate that The Donald may have paid no federal taxes for nearly twenty years.
Donald Trump may have avoided paying federal income taxes for 18 years, according to tax records obtained by The New York Times and published on Saturday night.
The documents indicated that Trump declared a $916 million loss in 1995, providing him with a deduction so large it could have eliminated his obligation to legally pay annual federal taxes by up to $50 million for nearly two decades, tax experts told The Times.
The fire under all of this smoke is, of course, barely enough to light a cigar, but that’s not the point of the story. You’ll notice a constant set of phrases in all of the coverage of this “bombshell” release. They include things such as, might have and could have or may not have paid. That’s because the actual document only shows a massive loss which Trump claimed in 1995. What’s been established is that the loss in question opened the door to Trump potentially not owing any federal taxes over a considerable period of time because of the $916M loss. What’s also mentioned in decidedly muted tones is that if Trump wound up not owing any federal tax, that it was completely legal.
Let’s assume for a moment that Trump took full advantage of the tax laws in the way being described. (And frankly I’d start questioning his sanity if he didn’t.) This means that the Times has “caught” him following the tax code to pay the smallest amount of tax possible under the law. I mean, it’s not like anyone else does that, right? If Trump were A Good Person he would have massively overpaid his taxes and then we could all celebrate what a wonderful fellow he is, just like the people who handle the tax returns of the New York Times. Oh, wait… in 2014 the Gray Lady paid zero taxes and received millions in refunds despite having declared a substantial profit. (Forbes)
More recently, for tax year 2014, The New York Times paid no taxes and got an income tax refund of $3.5 million even though they had a pre-tax profit of $29.9 million in 2014. In other words, their post-tax profit was higher than their pre-tax profit. The explanation in their 2014 annual report is, “The effective tax rate for 2014 was favorably affected by approximately $21.1 million for the reversal of reserves for uncertain tax positions due to the lapse of applicable statutes of limitations.” If you don’t think it took fancy accountants and tax lawyers to make that happen, read the statement again.
But enough about hypocrisy. This was never about taxes to begin with and was always about the politics going on behind the scenes. The response to all of this from the Trump campaign was predictable and, if we’re to be honest, accurate.
“The only news here is that the more than 20-year-old alleged tax document was illegally obtained, a further demonstration that the New York Times, like establishment media in general, is an extension of the Clinton Campaign, the Democratic Party and their global special interests,” a campaign statement said.
I wonder where those tax documents came from? The person who the Times describes as an anonymous source might want to take a look at 26 U.S. Code § 6103 – Confidentiality and disclosure of returns and return information. The law has been broken here, but there’s scant mention of that in the Gray Lady. Imagine our surprise.
Since the New York Times and their allies are engaging in the speculation game here (“could have paid no taxes” etc.) let’s do a bit of that ourselves. What are the odds that the original person or persons who illegally obtained Trump’s tax documents and gifted them to the Gray Lady were only able to get their hands on a few pages of partial tax documents from a single year? Pretty much zero. There’s probably quite a bit more and the Times almost certainly is sitting on them, just as they likely sat on these documents until what they deemed was the most opportune time to provide the maximum help to Hillary Clinton. With that in mind, why not release them in a drip, drip, drip fashion? Every time another story breaks about Hillary Clinton’s emails, her repeated lies on the subject and the preferential treatment she received from the FBI, the New York Times can drop another tax document in an attempt to swamp the news cycle.
Of course we don’t know that, just as the Times (thus far) doesn’t know that Trump paid no taxes. But if I were trying to game the election that’s certainly how I’d do it.
He still took a 900 million dollar loss and that can’t feel good
It’s pretty simple. Trump had negative income one year that he offset against the positive income of succeeding years.
Standard practice.
Even the New York Slimes does it, since the mostly have negative income.
The story, no matter how it’s spun, isn’t going to cause anybody’s vote to change anymore than the first debate did. I see the results of election 2016 already and they’re in DJT’s favor.
“I wonder where those tax documents came from?”
Jack Mitnick
See:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3475916/posts
Wouldn’t Trump have been filing under the very tax code that Bill Clinton and the Dems enacted that helped Democrats in the House lose their 40+ year lock on that Chamber?
Could it be that Bubbas historic tax increase actually benefited the “rich” more than they were telling us?
If anything, it makes Trump voters more furious and more motivated to vote.
I think it all comes down to how much cheating can Hillary and the Dems get away with. In a straight up election, with no possibility of fraud, I think she would get wiped out.
actually harder for times to do it because you need gains in order use the carryforward loss...I don’t think times have had many gains in last few years.
Make the IRS PAY for this.
Another example of a corrupt, politicized, abusive Federal Agency.
Yeah...and I read Warren Buffet took a 2.5 Billion loss in 2015...guess it’s all relative....relative to whomever you support in politics that is
Of course it did.
Tax cuts or tax hikes never bother the truly wealthy because they can always find some way to get around them. That is why they hire lawyers and accountants and buy congress critters.
Warren Buffet, who is a man I despise, can bewail the fact that his secretary pays a higher tax rate then he does because he knows that he paid for it to be that way.
Where any tax hike hits is on the guy who is comfortably wealthy but not fabulously wealthy. The guy who owns a dozen stores but not the guy who owns a hundred. Local wealth not national wealth.
It makes sure that the little local chains never grow to be competition to the big chains.
Looks like they’ve taken their best shot in the financial area — and it was a BLANK ROUND!
Trump should have ate those losses. In fact, a nice agent of the government should have stuffed them down his throat dry, because he is a disgusting capitalist swine.
Then, after he finished choking on his losses, he should have payed the government as much tax as he possibly could and then doubled that amount in another check to the government just to make up for all the damage he has done to the little people over the span his cursed life.
How dare he try to minimize his losses. How selfish.
Oh, and Hillary Clinton rips off charitable donations to disaster victims and sells government favors in order to enrich herself, because Lord knows she certainly doesn’t have anything else to sell that anyone would want?
No problem, not a crime, because Hillary Clinton fights for women and childrens, and she cares about your feelings har, har, har...
/s
This, and other points really work in Trump's favor if he plays it right. He has already come out saying that he wanted to close multiple loopholes, while decreasing the corporate and overall tax rates. He can point out that under Clinton the tax code allowed him these deductions, and that if he didn't take them he would have been legally culpable for failing his investors. He can legitimately say,
“these are the kinds of things I know about, and why I said the tax code needs to be changed. I will promote a tax code that is pro-growth, but fair to everyone - and one in which people like the Clintons can't deduct used underwear as a ‘charitable donation’ - which they did. The Clintons are worth over a quarter billion dollars, but they have never did manual labor, worn work boots or a hard hat, punched a time card, built a building, or created jobs for anyone. They peddled influence. That's what I want to change, and I'm coming at it as someone who knows how crooked the system is.”
“I wonder where those tax documents came from?”
I wouldn’t exclude Trump himself from the list.
I hope it was him, actually.
In one election year (2004?), Obozo ran in a DemonRat primary for the US Senate against a multigazillionaire by the name of Blair Hull. Mr. Hull had been divorced by his first wife who claimed physical brutality in her complaint. At the request of the parties, the Cook County court file was ordered sealed by the judge. IIRC, the file nonetheless became public and Obozo took shameless advantage even though Hull's first wife had publicly admitted after the file showed up in public that her charges of physical brutality were lies. The lady had again married Hull in case anyone is skeptical.
In that same election year, as soon as the GOP primar nominated a distinguished and attractive candidate in Dartmouth educated, investment banker, self-made millionaire Jack Ryan, Ryan's divorce file which had been ordered sealed by a California court became public including scurrilous allegations of Jack Ryan wanting to take his wife (Star Trek's Jeri Ryan or 7 of 9) to a Harrison, NY, sex club to perform sexual acts in public. I have no idea as to the veracity of such allegations but Jeri Ryan's dad publicly defended Jack Ryan calling him a fine young man. Ryan had retired (at age 40) from investment banking but was volunteering to teach at a Catholic high school for ghetto teenagers, teaching them his methods of building business success from scratch.
THAT is how Obozo became a US Senator. What do court orders matter when you have an Alinskyite "communis... err, community organizer" to elect to the Senate in preparation for electing him POTUS less than one term later.
Donald Trump's tax returns have no business finding themselves in the pages of the New York Slimes without Trump turning them over which he obviously did not. He lost his shirt with that casino and he is entitled by tax law to deduct the value of the shirt on as many future tax returns as needed.
How much in the way of income taxes are POTUS and Mrs. Dogpatch paying on the receipts of the Clinton Family Crime Foundation which is obviously their personal piggy bank. Since it is set up under the same tax laws to be a "tax-free" foundation, the "contributors" get to take deductions on their payoffs to Team Clinton.
And, while trying to harm Trump with the allegations, it appears that the New York Slimes is also taking advantage of the very same provisions of the IRS Code to avoid any taxes on one year's $29.9 million + net income.
Furthermore, if the Slimes received copies of actual returns from state tax officials from three states, you can bet that those who delivered such copies have committed crimes but also that the Slimes has been guilty of conspiracy in those crimes. The Slimes will, of course, seek to hide behind "protecting their sources." That's OK. Let's just convict the Slimes of conspiracy and punish the Slimes accordingly. Will they claim they made the whole thing up? That no returns are in their hands and that their protected "source" was the imagination of the news crew. Remember Harry Reid claiming that Moral Monster Mitt Romneypaid no income taxes but, challenged on that, Reid replied: Let Romney PROVE he paid taxes!. When the election was over, reid said: It was a lie. What difference does it make. We won and that was the point.
Hillary would have to cheat by the hundreds of thousands to make a difference in the rush to the polls by Trump supporters. All this talk of cheating is just a passel of unnecessary worrying.
As well it should. If they can steal and publish DJT’s tax returns, then they can expose mine and yours as well for whatever nefarious purpose; just because we’re FR malcontents that post anti-gov’t. comments perhaps?
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