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22 thoughts on “What’s in Donald Trump’s tax returns?”

  3. Salamander

    Look forward to journalists uncovering lots and lots of criming. Whether the judicial system will be able ... or willing ... to keep up is another thing.

    Assuming that, at some point in the investigations which could go on for decades, the former guy drops dead. He still owes, doesn't he? I recall reading in the 1040 instructions that "death of the taxpayer is no excuse for not filing."

  4. DFPaul

    Make everything a business and everything is "deductible". I think it was in the LA Times I read that one $50k "speaking fee" was offset by $49.2k" in expenses.

    Now I'm recalling the documentary from the late 80s about Chuck Berry -- "Hail! Hail! Rock n Roll" I think it was called -- where Berry is asked about the guitar he's carrying through an airport and, with a wink, he says something like "Tools... Deductible". Of course it's quite funny in context because only about a zillion Chuck Berry fans worship his guitars.

    In fact a major theme of that documentary is about how Berry -- at that time anyway -- toured extensively but kept his own costs to an absolute minimum. For instance, he hired local bar bands to back him up rather than traveling with his own musicians.

  6. golack

    Only little people pay taxes....

    The Republicans have underfunded the IRS and its shows. But by law, they have to audit some EITC filings. As for auditing the uber wealthy--their filings are complex and any rulings against them will be challenged. I wonder it those audits are being done to give agents experience so they can jump into the private sector.

    Maybe it's getting better:
    https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/02/irs-working-to-boost-audit-rates-for-higher-earners.html

    The audit rate was about the same for those getting EITC and those reporting $5million in income.
    Not sure what the division by income level means when the truly wealthy report no income. The IRS report also has a section for "no reported income" (pdf file)
    https://www.irs.gov/about-irs/irs-audit-rates-significantly-increase-as-income-rises

  7. different_name

    I'm honestly pretty ambivalent about it.

    I'm not particularly concerned with the tongue-clicking about precedent and such. At least for this generation, we're past that, and pretending that unilaterally engaging in dead political norms is just an invitation for Marge to try to get you murdered.

    But I'm also not going to pretend that this is much more than about humiliating Dirtbag Don. Which, again, I'm fine with - that shithead deserves so much more.

    It isn't making any point that matters about pols releasing their tax returns, or anything else. I understand why elected folks pretend otherwise, but not why anyone else does. Just a distraction at a time when a lot of other, important things could be happening.

    1. Austin

      Right. I’m sure the week between Christmas and New Years, lots of “other, important things” would be getting done, if it weren’t for the distraction of combing through Trump’s tax records. Thanks for the concern trolling, you may fck off now.

      1. different_name

        The Dems are about to lose the house, and there are a number of things I personally give a shit about, whether or not they meet your clearly high standards.

        So in the spirit of the new year, you can bite me.

  8. KJK

    I would expect that any real sham tax avoidance transactions likely occurred (and is continuing to occur) in the myriad web of entities that Orange Jesus owns, which consolidates into the personal tax returns disclosed today.

    The larger issue is how is it fair that the wealthy can acquire appreciating assets likes commercial real estate, stocks, and business entities, enjoy the tax shelter associated with most of those assets (tax depreciation and interest expense write offs) and then die and his beneficiaries (Uday and Qusay Trump, and maybe Ivanka and Tiffany) get to step up the tax basis in these assets to current fair market value, eliminating all the potential tax gain of these assets appreciation and tax basis recapture.

    Why he wasn't audited during his occupation of the White House is utter bull shit. Every high wealth person or large corporation have accountants and tax lawyers managing their tax return preparations. Who do you think comes up with tax avoidance transactions and dubious tax opinions supporting those arrangements?

    1. KawSunflower

      Yes. indeed.

      Maybe the trump "children" can be audited retroactively?

      And as one who has always had to document everything & seldom included charitable donations because it wasn't worthwhile, even when my own chosen donations received less than the organizations my employee "suggested" one quarter, I was disgusted that much larger donations than I could afford but which trump claimed, I would like to know the reason that proof was not required of him.

  10. jte21

    I think what's going to come out of Trump's tax returns isn't some huge illegal tax evasion scheme, but the fact that his tax avoidance may be entirely legal. Rich people have access to write-offs, loopholes, and other income-reduction schemes regular salary and wage-earning schmoes like you and me simply don't. Rich people and corporations can earn millions in profit and still pay no taxes if they have good enough accountants and tax lawyers.

    I think most Jane and Joe taxpayer on the street are largely unaware of the legal murder rich taxpayers like Trump get away with. Maybe shining some light on these deals will get enough people angry that politicians will finally do something about it. I'm not holding my breath, though.

  11. rich1812

    Kevin, do you still think his returns shouldn't have been released?

    Two points of note. (1) He wasn't being audited even though he was supposed to be audited. Would we have know without the release? (2) There are a bunch of Schedule C's, many with large losses used to offset other income - for years. If you set up a "business" to expense your photography, wrote off the expenses for "business" but never earned any income from your photography, do you think the IRS would have let you get away with that for years? My guess is that there's much worse abuses, but that's a simple one that's easy to understand.

    1. Solarpup

      I think Kevin's original point about not releasing the tax returns was that since control of the House was about to switch to Republicans, there's nothing the House D's could do with the returns so it would come off like they were just being petty.

      However, one thing that I hadn't thought about, but saw discussed in some opinion piece someplace, was the Democrats in the Senate could take this up, and with the House releasing the returns, the Senate could avoid the delay of getting their own subpoena, which they otherwise would have had to do.

      So, here's hoping for something damning in the returns that the Senate can take up. Lord knows that if the shoe were on the other foot, the Republicans wouldn't hesitate to do the same.

    2. tigersharktoo

      "If you set up a "business" to expense your photography, wrote off the expenses for "business" but never earned any income from your photography, do you think the IRS would have let you get away with that for years? My guess is that there's much worse abuses, but that's a simple one that's easy to understand."

      I believe the IRS requires a business to show a profit over time. Otherwise it is a "hobby business"

  13. kahner

    i'm no tax expert, but i imagine the releases tax returns can only hint at any underlying criminality which must then be investigated, and those investigations probably can't be carried out very effectively by journalists who lack subpoena power. Lots of things in the tax returns may look bad and bely fraud, but you're not going to be able to prove it because of course his tax attorneys wouldn't file something that on it's face is a crime. so i'm sure right wingers will claim victory that this is a big nothing burger liberal overeach in the short term. but i hope and expect that various law enforcement officials will be following up and probably bring some indictments.

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