Trump’s Tax Returns Show the Mark of a Great Businessman

Hey, y’all, Donald Trump lost a lot of money in the 1980s! – That’s the big “bomb” the news-fakers at the New York Times dropped on President Donald Trump Tuesday night, as the paper somehow got hold of a decade of Trump’s tax returns. In all, the returns show that Trump’s real estate and casino businesses lost over a billion dollars during the 10 year period.

Well, for tax purposes, that is. Anyone familiar with how the tax code works, i.e., nobody who works for the NYTimes, would know that tax losses do not necessarily reflect actual business losses. The President himself addressed this idiotic move by the Times on his Twitter account this morning:

Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump · 41m Real estate developers in the 1980’s & 1990’s, more than 30 years ago, were entitled to massive write offs and depreciation which would, if one was actively building, show losses and tax losses in almost all cases. Much was non monetary. Sometimes considered “tax shelter,” ......

Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump ....you would get it by building, or even buying. You always wanted to show losses for tax purposes....almost all real estate developers did - and often re-negotiate with banks, it was sport. Additionally, the very old information put out is a highly inaccurate Fake News hit job!

14.2K 5:56 AM - May 8, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy 9,674 people are talking about this

As a businessman, Donald Trump has stated repeatedly and unfailingly anytime this stupid subject has been raised by our crave fake media that he took full advantage of the U.S. tax code in the conduct of his business ventures. The demented nutjobs at the NYTimes – whose own business, by the way, also takes full advantage of the U.S. tax code – wants you to think that this means Trump is a somehow a really bad guy who was stealing from you personally.

Here’s why: Tax “write-offs” exist in the code for a reason. They exist because at some point in time the U.S. congress felt it would be advantageous to the U.S. economy to incentivize certain behaviors in the business world.

Anyone with any understanding of the history of the 1980s – which again would obviously exclude anyone working for the despicable NYTimes – would know that Ronald Reagan came into office in 1981 in the midst of a major recession created by Jimmy Carter and convinced congress to pass a major tax reform designed to boost economic growth.

The new tax code (which I understand because I was an accountant doing tax work in the 1980s) that came out of that reform effort included various incentives, like the old ACRS system of accelerated depreciation, designed to increase investment of new capital in the building and manufacturing of hard assets. You know, stuff like high rise office buildings and fancy high-rise condo developments in oh, say, Manhattan.

Like me, many of my readers live in Texas. Those of us over the age of, say, 50 will remember that the skylines of Houston and Dallas were completely transformed during the 1980s, with new high-rise buildings like the ones Donald Trump was building and buying and selling in Manhattan also being built in those cities by major developers like Trammel Crow.

See, building big buildings like that and manufacturing all manner of hard goods benefits the economy by creating … wait for it, Democrats because I know you don’t know the answer here … JOBS. Oh, and that other thing all Democrats hate with a passion, ECONOMIC GROWTH.

How did that new tax code work out for America? Well – listen closely all you economic ignoramuses in the Democrat Party and the fake news media – it created the LONGEST AND BIGGEST ECONOMIC EXPANSION IN MODERN HISTORY.

Oh, hey, guess which individual’s business empire was in a better position than anyone else in America in 1981 to take full advantage of the incentives offered by this handy new tax code?

And that’s really all there is to know about this particular stupid non-story.

A few years ago, it was revealed that General Electric’s corporate return totaled some 67,000 pages, and in the end, the company didn’t pay a dime in federal taxes. Achieving that takes some very good accounting—and showing lots of “losses” in various business activities. Of course, GE was still making billions in profit, but if you know how to use the tax code to your advantage, you can offset those profits with various deductions and write-offs.

On a related note, I was listening to El Rushbo yesterday. He has had a partnership with Clear Channel (now iHeart media) for years. They manage his digital properties, and he has long had a contract with Jacor, the syndication arm that Clear Channel bought out years ago. Rush said there were “two or three” IRS employees permanently assigned to iHeart’s corporate headquarters to “assist” the company with its takes, and claimed the practice is standard.

I’d never heard of that arrangement before (and will defer to those more informed than I am), but it would make sense for the IRS to have dedicated liaisons with large corporations. In the case of iHeart, it might be related to the billions in debt racked up by taking the company private, and potential efforts to write off some of that debt.

If Trump was able to write off a billion in business losses and lower this tax bill, more power to him. Or would you prefer someone like Crazy Uncle Joe, who set up his son for a $1.5 billion deal with the government of China, and protected him from potential investigation by Ukrainian prosecutors?

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