Trump Presidency

[PraetorianND]

What is bad with them saying there are no unreported connections to Russia?

The point is that this is yet another illustrations of Trump being a hypocrite of the highest order. He complained about Obama paying 20% in taxes but he has been paying zero taxes for years. He complained incessantly about Obama golfing but then golfed twice as much after he got in office. He is a total charlatan. It’s sad that there’s so many people willing to swallow it because they’re either too stupid to realize he’s a con artist solely interested in self preservation, or they hate liberals so much they would prefer to be lied to repeatedly than have the other party in the White House.

Wait, he didn’t pay taxes because he didn’t make income.

He paid $38 million in taxes on income of more than $150 million for 2005.

This is a common thing actually, especially in real estate. Often, you take carry forward losses, deduct improvements, and the realize gains when you sell properties. I bet he only has a handful of years in the black at all, but those years are probably really large.

Not sure I understand the outage here.

Tax avoidance isn’t illegal and I think his point is actually that Obama is a hypocrite, obviously. Obama spent his entire presidency bashing rich people and he makes shit loads of money and pays very little taxes (like every other rich person). Trump never claimed any of that was wrong or bad. Trump’s entire shtick is that’s he claims to be a savvy business man, which this is actually just evidence of. This is the growth strategy Amazon has taken as well. Get as close to zero net income as possible to reduce tax bleed as much as possible. That’s just smart business.

When you pay your taxes do you ask your tax accountant to find ways to pay more in taxes or something? Lol

 

[Irish YJ]

What is bad with them saying there are no unreported connections to Russia?

The point is that this is yet another illustrations of Trump being a hypocrite of the highest order. He complained about Obama paying 20% in taxes but he has been paying zero taxes for years. He complained incessantly about Obama golfing but then golfed twice as much after he got in office. He is a total charlatan. It’s sad that there’s so many people willing to swallow it because they’re either too stupid to realize he’s a con artist solely interested in self preservation, or they hate liberals so much they would prefer to be lied to repeatedly than have the other party in the White House.

You're going to be lied to from whoever is elected. They're all charlatans lol. HRC, Biden, Trump, they are the 3 worst candidates IMO that we've had in the last 30 years. As far as Trump is concerned, he can lie all he wants to about his private shit. For the most part, he's done what he said he would do from a policy perspective. I didn't think he would even do that. I voted for him more or less solely for the SCOTUS picks. And I'm very pleased with getting the 2, and probably +1 here shortly.

Joe says he's going to bring back manufacturing jobs, be tough on China, and bring people together. I don't believe any of that. The rest of his promises I don't want. It's a very easy decision for me. Personality, taxes, golfing, I just don't care about.

 

[sharksamardzija8345]

You're going to be lied to from whoever is elected. They're all charlatans lol. HRC, Biden, Trump, they are the 3 worst candidates IMO that we've had in the last 30 years. As far as Trump is concerned, he can lie all he wants to about his private shit. For the most part, he's done what he said he would do from a policy perspective. I didn't think he would even do that. I voted for him more or less solely for the SCOTUS picks. And I'm very pleased with getting the 2, and probably +1 here shortly.

Joe says he's going to bring back manufacturing jobs, be tough on China, and bring people together. I don't believe any of that. The rest of his promises I don't want. It's a very easy decision for me. Personality, taxes, golfing, I just don't care about.

And democracy apparently lol. Slip that in there between taxes and golfing, I suppose.

 

[TorontoGold]

I really wish he just released his returns. Out of the three possible outcomes, only one poses a threat to him.

1) If it is just tax avoidance, that's fine and it'll be dealt with through an IRS audit.
2) He's a subpar business man and has a good CPA firm to make sure that he takes aggressive provisions that are planned to take care of any tax owing.
3) He's evading tax, and will have a whole CPA firm implicated. lol

As an auditor (corporate, not government), I'm really interested on the deferred tax liability that he's carrying on his corporate books. If his losses are generated from the property he owns, that's fine he's generating large depreciation amounts, but what I want to know is what are the tax values for those properties now. Is he planning on just dumping the huge gains that those properties will incur upon sale to his kids? Personally, that would be hilarious as hell, watching the golden spoon group try to come up with cash to pay off daddy's tax liabilities.

If the losses are coming from poorly run business ventures, I think that'll be harder for the IRS to "get him" on. I would think that a lot of the pageants and things have a lot of invoice support (real or not), in true Trump fashion I'm sure those lead to some lower level bozo who will get stiffed for the huge tax penalties for missing remittances.

The one thing that puzzles me is the "Trump has loans with foreign governments" aspect of all of this. In CAD taxes, there's a foreign holdings reporting information form that details your foreign holdings over $100K. You're supposed to list the corporations name, max book value, cap gains made during the year, and interest income from that entity. I'm sure the IRS has a similar form. If you're doing shady shit, would you not set up a company in that country with a stupid name like "ABC Contracting" and funnel the money through that? I'm not sure you'll be able to make a judgement on foreign holdings if they're released or not.

Anyways, likely outcome looks like Don Jr/Eric/Ivanka get hit with huge tax liabilities once Donny bites it.

 

[Irish YJ]

And democracy apparently lol. Slip that in there between taxes and golfing, I suppose.

I don't care about democracy? Wut? Whoever gets elected wins. That's democracy. All this "threat to democracy", constitutional crisis, and we're all gonna die shit from the left is more tired than a coma.

 

[PraetorianND]

I really wish he just released his returns. Out of the three possible outcomes, only one poses a threat to him.

1) If it is just tax avoidance, that's fine and it'll be dealt with through an IRS audit.
2) He's a subpar business man and has a good CPA firm to make sure that he takes aggressive provisions that are planned to take care of any tax owing.
3) He's evading tax, and will have a whole CPA firm implicated. lol

As an auditor (corporate, not government), I'm really interested on the deferred tax liability that he's carrying on his corporate books. If his losses are generated from the property he owns, that's fine he's generating large depreciation amounts, but what I want to know is what are the tax values for those properties now. Is he planning on just dumping the huge gains that those properties will incur upon sale to his kids? Personally, that would be hilarious as hell, watching the golden spoon group try to come up with cash to pay off daddy's tax liabilities.

If the losses are coming from poorly run business ventures, I think that'll be harder for the IRS to "get him" on. I would think that a lot of the pageants and things have a lot of invoice support (real or not), in true Trump fashion I'm sure those lead to some lower level bozo who will get stiffed for the huge tax penalties for missing remittances.

The one thing that puzzles me is the "Trump has loans with foreign governments" aspect of all of this. In CAD taxes, there's a foreign holdings reporting information form that details your foreign holdings over $100K. You're supposed to list the corporations name, max book value, cap gains made during the year, and interest income from that entity. I'm sure the IRS has a similar form. If you're doing shady shit, would you not set up a company in that country with a stupid name like "ABC Contracting" and funnel the money through that? I'm not sure you'll be able to make a judgement on foreign holdings if they're released or not.

Anyways, likely outcome looks like Don Jr/Eric/Ivanka get hit with huge tax liabilities once Donny bites it.

I wish he had released them too. As a lawyer and a normal person, I am interested in this liability too.

He was audited every single year by the IRS. So I’m assuming he either paid off the IRS or it wasn’t illegal (it’s obviously the latter).

 

[PraetorianND]

I don't care about democracy? Wut? Whoever gets elected wins. That's democracy. All this "threat to democracy", constitutional crisis, and we're all gonna die shit from the left is more tired than a coma.

We don’t live in a democracy. Don’t worry about it. This is a stupid comment in the first place.

 

[Irish YJ]

We don’t live in a democracy. Don’t worry about it. This is a stupid comment in the first place.

Yep, I know. Comments like that only reinforce why I'm more "never-dem" than IND these days.

 

[NEIIrish]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">“Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the WH, he paid another $750. He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made” <a href="https://t.co/8vUofZIlJi">https://t.co/8vUofZIlJi</a></p>— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) <a href="https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1310327613517426696?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 27, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

"Billionaire" Donald Trump who was "self funding his campaign" (re: actually begging people for money) is actually broke and/or cheating on his taxes. Yikes.

The nyt didn’t release their tax documents that they have so you are completely trusting a source that has been hell bent on destroying him for years. Take a step back and think about that. It’s not hard to do unless you are completely unhinged. “Protect the source “

 

[arahop]

Any tax experts on here?

 

[Irish#1]

Any tax experts on here?

H&R hasn’t posted on here in years.

Personally I don’t care if any president or candidate doesn’t release their taxes. It’s not going to change anything.

 

[Irish YJ]

H&R hasn’t posted on here in years.

Personally I don’t care if any president or candidate doesn’t release their taxes. It’s not going to change anything.

you obviously don't care about democracy.

 

[PraetorianND]

Any tax experts on here?

Yes. His taxes aren’t a big deal at all.

People just take issue with tax law, which is fine. He’s done nothing illegal and has structured his taxes in order to pay as little as possible. It’s called tax planning.

 

[TorontoGold]

Yes. His taxes aren’t a big deal at all.

People just take issue with tax law, which is fine. He’s done nothing illegal and has structured his taxes in order to pay as little as possible. It’s called tax planning.

The takeaways from all of this for me is - 1) There has to be some tax changes, if a guy like DJT is paying 750 bucks, that equates to virtually no AMT over that time period. 2) Maybe he isn't as rich as he says he is. If DJT wants to really pull a fast one on people release the auditted statements for the Trump entities. Show everyone that you're a billionaire. Audited statements from a big 4 firm would be rock solid.

 

[NorthDakota]

The New York Times and media will run with it...but he told the world in 2016 that he didnt pay much income tax.

Hillary straight up brought it up in a debate and his response was, "that makes me smart."

 

[PraetorianND]

The takeaways from all of this for me is - 1) There has to be some tax changes, if a guy like DJT is paying 750 bucks, that equates to virtually no AMT over that time period. 2) Maybe he isn't as rich as he says he is. If DJT wants to really pull a fast one on people release the auditted statements for the Trump entities. Show everyone that you're a billionaire. Audited statements from a big 4 firm would be rock solid.

This is a totally reasonable and fair take about taxation.

Remember though that in 2005 he made $150M in a single year. My guess is that year isn’t his only year of profits and I’m sure he didn’t blow all that on hookers and blow (maybe he did).

You only pay taxes when you have taxable events. My guess is he’s got a lot of money riding (which is smart).

This is nowhere near a “gotcha” thing at all. It’s a joke.

 

[IrishLax]

Wait, he didn’t pay taxes because he didn’t make income.

He paid $38 million in taxes on income of more than $150 million for 2005.

This is a common thing actually, especially in real estate. Often, you take carry forward losses, deduct improvements, and the realize gains when you sell properties. I bet he only has a handful of years in the black at all, but those years are probably really large.

Not sure I understand the outage here.

Tax avoidance isn’t illegal and I think his point is actually that Obama is a hypocrite, obviously. Obama spent his entire presidency bashing rich people and he makes shit loads of money and pays very little taxes (like every other rich person). Trump never claimed any of that was wrong or bad. Trump’s entire shtick is that’s he claims to be a savvy business man, which this is actually just evidence of. This is the growth strategy Amazon has taken as well. Get as close to zero net income as possible to reduce tax bleed as much as possible. That’s just smart business.

When you pay your taxes do you ask your tax accountant to find ways to pay more in taxes or something? Lol

Solid apologia, weird it took you 4 tries to get here. Nobody is "outraged" we are just laughing at Trump per usual.

Btw there was a lot more in that reporting, which you conveniently ignore:<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">“The records go much further to revealing the conflicts created by Trump’s refusal to divest his business interests while in the WH. His properties have become bazaars for collecting money directly from lobbyists, foreign officials and others seeking face time, access or favor.”</p>— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnJHarwood/status/1310332089200508928?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 27, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Meanwhile his son has to testify in a fraud investigation against Trump in New York within the next two weeks after his repeated attempts to delay it finally ran out. And his tax records show that he paid Ivanka as a consultant even though she is a member of the company which is against IRS rules.

The “consultants” are not identified in the tax records. But evidence of this arrangement was gleaned by comparing the confidential tax records to the financial disclosures Ivanka Trump filed when she joined the White House staff in 2017. Ms. Trump reported receiving payments from a consulting company she co-owned, totaling $747,622, that exactly matched consulting fees claimed as tax deductions by the Trump Organization for hotel projects in Vancouver and Hawaii.

Ms. Trump had been an executive officer of the Trump companies that received profits from and paid the consulting fees for both projects — meaning she appears to have been treated as a consultant on the same hotel deals that she helped manage as part of her job at her father’s business.

Fake consulting deals with members of a company that is also managing the same project are a big red flag to the IRS. Trump hid income by listing his own daughter a consultant on projects that she was managing. In other words, Ivanka Trump and her father were cheating the United States government, and the American people to hide income and avoid paying taxes.

Drain the swamp, indeed.

I'm sure your response will be some screed about Hunter Biden or the Clinton foundation so don't waste your breath.

 

[IrishLax]

The New York Times and media will run with it...but he told the world in 2016 that he didnt pay much income tax.

Hillary straight up brought it up in a debate and his response was, "that makes me smart."

The "news" part of this isn't that he pays no taxes. The news is that his filings show he is either:
1) Broke, with staggering liabilities that far outweigh his assets and revenue.
2) A tax cheat.

Those are the only two options. Pick one. Neither is good.

The other half is that while everyone is aware (or should be aware) of the criminal investigations involving him & his family in New York, anyone who pretends to care about Hunter Biden should be floored with what the documents show for him & his family since he's been in the White House. But we all know that none of you actually care about corruption or you would've been up in arms about a million other things like blatant Hatch Act violations, etc.

 

[IrishLax]

The nyt didn’t release their tax documents that they have so you are completely trusting a source that has been hell bent on destroying him for years. Take a step back and think about that. It’s not hard to do unless you are completely unhinged. “Protect the source “

When in doubt, just call everything "fake news."

Trump could put all this to bed by releasing his tax returns... something that every Presidential candidate since Nixon has done... but he won't. And hey, now we know why he won't.

 

[IrishLax]

You're going to be lied to from whoever is elected. They're all charlatans lol.

Come on, this is a weak equivocation and you know that. Every politician lies, but nobody lies as much as Trump. He is the biggest liar on record. It's like saying that getting slapped in the face or your arm chopped off with a machete are both assault, so who cares which one happens to you.

 

[NorthDakota]

The "news" part of this isn't that he pays no taxes. The news is that his filings show he is either:
1) Broke, with staggering liabilities that far outweigh his assets and revenue.
2) A tax cheat.

Those are the only two options. Pick one. Neither is good.

The other half is that while everyone is aware (or should be aware) of the criminal investigations involving him & his family in New York, anyone who pretends to care about Hunter Biden should be floored with what the documents show for him & his family since he's been in the White House. But we all know that none of you actually care about corruption or you would've been up in arms about a million other things like blatant Hatch Act violations, etc.

I'm far from a tax expert, but low/no income tax doesn't mean you are broke and I'd guess there is next to no chance he is a "tax cheat" any more than anyone else is. I presume Donald Trump is precisely the type of person the IRS will look pretty closely at.

I would guess a lot of his worth is tied up in land, buildings, etc. I will leave that to the tax nerds to figure out.

 

[Bishop2b5]

The "news" part of this isn't that he pays no taxes. The news is that his filings show he is either:
1) Broke, with staggering liabilities that far outweigh his assets and revenue.
2) A tax cheat.

Those are the only two options. Pick one. Neither is good.

The other half is that while everyone is aware (or should be aware) of the criminal investigations involving him & his family in New York, anyone who pretends to care about Hunter Biden should be floored with what the documents show for him & his family since he's been in the White House. But we all know that none of you actually care about corruption or you would've been up in arms about a million other things like blatant Hatch Act violations, etc.

Lax, the left has screamed "WOLF!!!" every single day for almost four years. Turned out there was never a wolf. Twisted analysis, outright lies, wishful thinking, and trying too hard to make the facts fit their fantasy have left us jaded and unimpressed. Excuse us if we roll our eyes this time too.

 

[TorontoGold]

I'm far from a tax expert, but low/no income tax doesn't mean you are broke and I'd guess there is next to no chance he is a "tax cheat" any more than anyone else is. I presume Donald Trump is precisely the type of person the IRS will look pretty closely at.

I would guess a lot of his worth is tied up in land, buildings, etc. I will leave that to the tax nerds to figure out.

How many times does Joe $100K get dusted for tax evasion? Never. The motive is simply not the same.

Depending on the timing of his purchases of his properties he's likely cooked taxwise in the next 10-15 years, as I'm sure his accountants aggressively claimed depreciation on his buildings to counter act his apprenticeship royalties. The lenders for the loans coming due will likely do a ton of work on the property values, so if there's any impropriety involved it'll get uncovered as soon as the loan application process starts.

 

[PraetorianND]

Solid apologia, weird it took you 4 tries to get here. Nobody is "outraged" we are just laughing at Trump per usual.

Btw there was a lot more in that reporting, which you conveniently ignore:<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">“The records go much further to revealing the conflicts created by Trump’s refusal to divest his business interests while in the WH. His properties have become bazaars for collecting money directly from lobbyists, foreign officials and others seeking face time, access or favor.”</p>— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnJHarwood/status/1310332089200508928?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 27, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Meanwhile his son has to testify in a fraud investigation against Trump in New York within the next two weeks after his repeated attempts to delay it finally ran out. And his tax records show that he paid Ivanka as a consultant even though she is a member of the company which is against IRS rules.

Drain the swamp, indeed.

I'm sure your response will be some screed about Hunter Biden or the Clinton foundation so don't waste your breath.

I’m not sure why you think I’m apologizing for him. I’m not. There is nothing to apologize for. It seems you don’t have much knowledge about taxation. This is far from proof that he’s committed a crime. I was merely trying to help you understand that.

There are plenty of things you can hate about Trump, this one is extremely thin. He’s using tax law to his greatest benefit. Not sure why that’s a problem at all - we all do this. Nobody is trying to pay extra in taxes...

 

[IrishLax]

I’m not sure why you think I’m apologizing for him. I’m not. It seems you don’t have much knowledge about taxation. This is far from proof that he’s committed a crime. I was merely trying to help you understand that.

Literally nobody said it was "proof he committed a crime". Good effort though, can't wait for your next straw man.

 

[PraetorianND]

Literally nobody said it was "proof he committed a crime". Good effort though, can't wait for your next straw man.

I’ve been pretty polite and have used extremely rational logic. My only point is that tax avoidance isn’t a crime, nor immoral.

Your posts on the other hand are dripping with anger, insults, and outrageous rhetoric.

I’m not sure what I said to offend you so much, but whatever it was, I sincerely apologize.

 

[IrishLax]

I'm far from a tax expert, but low/no income tax doesn't mean you are broke

That's not what anyone is saying. I'm 99% sure at this point that no one commenting here actually read the article.

Everyone knows Amazon isn't "broke" while paying no taxes, etc. No one is saying he's broke because he pays no taxes.

People are saying he's broke because of the liabilities, losses, and dried up revenue streams he is reporting in his documents. If he's not broke, then he fraudulent reporting his financial situation. It's one or the other. He has hundreds of millions of dollars of loans coming due with no way to pay them... per what he filed... except to start selling off assets. It's really that straightforward. Either he is lying on his taxes or he is broke.

and I'd guess there is next to no chance he is a "tax cheat" any more than anyone else is. I presume Donald Trump is precisely the type of person the IRS will look pretty closely at.

He's currently being investigated for fraud in New York. People realize that, right? It hasn't moved forward specifically because he's President and been putting up roadblocks. His son has to testify by the first week in October and it's the first crack the AG there has been able to get.

I don't know why anyone would assume that Trump with his history would be "clean." The Trump Foundation was found guilty of fraud and misappropriating funds and ordered to shut down. Trump University paid $25 million in a fraud settlement and shut down. Now we have people who have seen documents he refused to release (first President since Nixon to do that!) and point out lots of other irregularities... why would the assumption be that he's clean and not guilty like he has been in the past?

 

[IrishLax]

I’ve been pretty polite and have used extremely rational logic. My only point is that tax avoidance isn’t a crime, nor immoral.

Oh please. You haven't been "polite". Your first rejoinder was a shitpost about the Clinton Foundation before you deleted it. Then you said "it seems you don't know much about taxation" before inventing a straw man about "proof he committed a crime."

So tiresome.

 

[PraetorianND]

Oh please. You haven't been "polite". Your first rejoinder was a shitpost about the Clinton Foundation before you deleted it. Then you said "it seems you don't know much about taxation" before inventing a straw man about "proof he committed a crime."

So tiresome.

Shit posting about the Clinton Foundation isn’t an insult to you. Also, I deleted intentionally so we could stay on topic. Yet here we are...

I mean, it really seems like you don’t know much about taxation. If you did, you would understand that tax avoidance is normal.

Also, you clearly don’t understand law while we’re at it. Trump is not Trump University. Did you know that? He’s not a sole proprietor or something. We’re talking about personal taxation here.

I’m not saying this to be offensive to you. I apologize if any of this feels insulting, it’s not intended to.

Lastly, I believe in the due process of law. So you declaring Trump’s guilt is not gonna move the needle for me, sorry.

 

[IrishLax]

Lastly, I believe in the due process of law. So you declaring Trump’s guilt is not gonna move the needle for me, sorry.

Except I didn't do that. This is why this entire discussion with you is a joke. You clearly didn't read the article. Or what I posted.