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Trump’s Taxes Show Chronic Losses and Years of Income Tax Avoidance
- ENOTTY 6y agoGreat thread here that covers his loans https://twitter.com/DanAlexander21/status/1310346161816064000 https://twitter.com/DanAlexander21/status/131034616181606400... EDIT: I accidentally a 'that'
- tertiary 6y agoFor those that don't want to click through: He is on the hook personally for hundreds of millions of dollars in debt that will come due next few years during his potential second term with no obvious way of paying it off. There's no way of knowing who has control of it. Edit: and also from the thread, he owes > $1 Billion in total to lenders.
- adamiscool8 6y agoBut there's no indication presented this won't all be easily re-financeable, rolled over as most corporate debt is.
- boringg 6y agoTrue except that this article will make it more challenging given a greater whole picture of his finances for financiers.
- acdha 6y agoYou mean other than all of the past problems getting credit which forced him to seek out foreign funding in the first place? His businesses lose money and having so many bankruptcies where his partners have been left holding the bag is going to deter most bankers unless they have other ways to recoup their money. Here’s an old report about his credit rating - note the “likely to default”: https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/trumps-business-credit-score-is-19-out-of-a-possible-100 https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/trumps-business-credit-... Here’s an example of what it took for him to get loans in the past: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/business/deutsche-bank-donald-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/business/deutsche-bank-do...
- digitaltrees 6y agoThe only bank that was lending to him, deutsche bank, literally had a board meeting and investigation to determine how he was able to bypass internal controls and get more loans after they had halted lending to him (he basically got the private wealth division to keep going after the commercial division said no more). If that is the most favorable lender left, future loans from anyone seem unlikely.
- cm2187 6y agoCommercial real estate loans are often non recourse. You lend to the holding company who owns the property. If it fails you don’t necessarily have a claim on the owners of that company. And I would expect covid to have decimated the value of commercial real estate, particularly hotels.
- ENOTTY 6y agoThis is briefly discussed in the NYT article. Apparently some of the loans are borrowed against his personal holdings.
- cm2187 6y agoThat may be the case but I would be surprised the NYT would know, unless they have seen the terms of the loan.
- digitaltrees 6y agoNo. Recourse loans are listed on tax filings separately from non-recourse. The personal guarantee means it shows up on personal income statements. So no other records are needed.
- kthejoker2 6y agoNope, we're talking about personal loans, personally guaranteed by him. No intermediary, no holding company.
- jshaqaw 6y agoBecause it's so easy to play asset stripping games, personal guarantees are very common in the commercial real estate world.
- digitaltrees 6y agoHow can anyone seriously support him being in a position of power if this is true. The opportunity to buy that debt and call it as leverage to extract political gain is so easy and obvious. Does any of this debt trade on any market? If so a hedge fund could basically have puppet strings on the federal government.
- andrei_says_ 6y agoSimple: it is not “true” to those who support him. They are told a completely different story - one of a successful businessman with unbending will, unfairly persecuted by the media, here to manifest God’s plan. Yes, including that last one. Talk to any fundamental Christian on why.
- jmeister 6y agoHow can NYT say America was actually founded in 1619? To his base, elite east coast “Fake News” media has no credibility whatsoever, because of blatant culture-war pandering like 1619.
- twmahna 6y ago> The opportunity to buy that debt and call it as leverage to extract political gain is so easy and obvious If this happened, you don't think he'd be able to get another institution (or GOP constituent) to re-finance/backstop his debt for him? 2-300m in debt is a lot but his businesses pull in 4-500m in annual revenue. It's not a crazy debt-to-income ratio.
- refurb 6y agoWhat is his net worth? I didn't see it in the article. Whether or not his debts are an issue really depends on how much wealth he has to back it up.
- mikequinlan 6y agoThe article is based on income tax returns which only deal with income and don't show net worth.
- refurb 6y agoThen how can they claim his personal loans put him at risk? If you have $500M in loans due, but $1B in the bank, it’s not really a problem is it?
- maxerickson 6y agoIs that a net position? I am not interested enough in the further details to try to figure it out for myself, but his net position is more important than the total debt.
- softawre 6y agoNet 2.5b https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2020/09/28/yes-donald-trump-is-still-a-billionaire-that-makes-his-750-tax-payment-even-more-scandalous/#355102172885 https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2020/09/28/yes-don...
- maxerickson 6y agoThanks. So according to that analysis, Trump has plenty of debt, and also plenty of resources to manage it. Hard to value his type of commercial real estate outside of an actual sale though.
- Balgair 6y agoHe has had recent trouble selling his properties for the asking price. He put up Trump International (the DC hotel) on the market in Oct. 2019 for $500M. There were no buyers at that price before he took it off the market due to covid-19. There is no indication that he has the resources to finance the debt. Nor is there indication that he does not have those resources. We simply do not know either way until a better picture of his finances comes out. https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-organization-exploring-sale-of-marquee-washington-hotel-11572019874 https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-organization-exploring-sa...
- softawre 6y agoBut he has 3.5b in assets. So that gives him about a 2.5b net worth. He can pay it.
- digitaltrees 6y agoDoes he though? He valued one property as $200M that was then later valued at $18M. He has a well documented history of inflating value estimates. He even claimed Trump Tower had more floors than it does (something so easy to count). So I would not just take the valuations at face value.
- itbeho 6y agoGreat thread? Really? Dan Alexander is hawking an anti-Trump book released on 9/22.
- bichiliad 6y agoWhat's wrong with the thread itself?
- stjohnswarts 6y agoIt's a great thread in that it exposes his fraud as a genius business executive and transparency on potential leverage that foreign entities use to gain even more control over him than they already have.
- TooCreative 6y agoHow does this twitter thread view work? Every tweet in this thread shows a different number of replies. But how do you see them? For example the one beginning with "7/ Then we'll consider 555 California St..." shows that it has 17 replies. Where are they? How can one read them?
- detaro 6y agoYou click on that tweet and scroll down.
- xenospn 6y agoDid anyone really expect anything else? People who actually make a lot of money don't go around shouting "I make a lot of money".
- king_panic 6y agoGreat, one less thing to hear the media complain about.
- malwarebytess 6y agoOutside of the near meaningless confirmation of Trump's status as a "fake" billionaire and how that may affect his ego, there's is an alarming piece of information here. The man owes hundreds of millions of dollars in personal loans that he may not be able to repay. They will come due during his second term. Given his lack of ethics it's worrying to me that a president could have that kind of leverage against him. Dangerous.
- drak0n1c 6y agoOn the other hand, the contents also show that breathless reporting of past foreign deals and money were pure rumor.
- SamBam 6y agoHow? The rumors are of shady money deals. These would not necessarily be shown in tax statements.
- digitaltrees 6y agoThis argument only works if you assume that clandestine payments and money laundering are impossible. You don’t think a foreign government could hide payments to someone? Inversely, you think bribes and shady payments from a government are going to show up on taxes? Haha. Come on. This does not settle anything related to Russia.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- kenhwang 6y agoThat's why it has been standard practice for Presidential candidates and aspirants to release taxes and other financial disclosures before elections, and why it was such a big deal that Trump didn't.
- xellisx 6y agoI think that it should be law that the finances of the people at these levels of governence (maybe even down to the city level) be open to the public to review.
- troughway 6y agoSee related comment here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24610488 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24610488
- spiritplumber 6y agoWill it make a difference?
- rsynnott 6y agoPossibly marginally, but I would have thought that most people who’d be perturbed by this wouldn’t be voting for him anyway. I suppose there might be a few people who might otherwise be inclined to vote for him scared off by the national security implications of the massive personal debt (this was one of the things that REALLY worried people during the Cold War, as debt was a common angle used by the KGB to subvert people) but you’re probably not talking about a lot of people.
- mhh__ 6y agoShould it - yes. Will it - possibly not, on the one hand if you are supporting trump now what could possibly convince you although money is money: He's a terrible businessman, and he pays no tax. That's a huge amount of his appeal to some.
- tom_mellior 6y ago"He pays no tax" won't be a big deal since the Republican position has long been that tax breaks for Great Men are somehow good for the economy and therefore somehow good for everyone. "Terrible businessman" is the more interesting angle, but it will be covered up by the tax angle.
- tertiary 6y agoI think the most interesting angle here are the hundreds of millions of dollars of loans that will come due in his second term. That's pretty terrifying especially given that to get that amount of money would require questionable lenders.
- _jahh 6y agoyes, even if minute having this is evidence rather than speculation of the scope of its fraudulence
- sigzero 6y agoThere is ZERO wrong with income tax "avoidance". I don't care who you are.
- tsherr 6y agoActually, it means you aren't paying your share for the services provided by the public. The only people who think that tax avoidance is a good thing are the unethical rich and the American embarrassed millionaires who've been convinced to vote against their own best interests.
- CamperBob2 6y agoNo, that's not what it means.
- worik 6y agoBS There is plenty wrong with it. It is not illegal. Not the same thing as being "zero wrong"
- softwaredoug 6y agoMorality and the law often have nothing in common
- boringg 6y agoTax avoidance has different colors. Some of it is totally fine, others is more concerning. I agree with you on the tone that is coming out that tax avoidance is wrong is totally bs. Tax evasion on the other hand is completely wrong and illegal.
- nrmitchi 6y agoI'm going to focus on just one example from this report. Seven Springs is a very large properly that he purchased, and claims and reports as an investment property. This allows deductions of all loan interest, upkeep/maintenance, and operating expenses. Based on family statements in the past, the property is used primarily as a personal residence. Reporting a personal property as an investment property in order to deduct expenses is not "tax avoidance", it is tax fraud.
- tertiary 6y agoFor comparison, President Trump payed $750 in federal income tax in 2016 and 2017. I just looked it up and I, a graduate student who makes like $30k a year paid three times that amount last year.
- christophilus 6y agoWarren Buffett is in a similar boat and has complained vocally about it. The US tax system is absurd when it comes to the upper echelon. [Edit: I mean, he's complained that it's unjust and that billionaires like him should be paying their fair share.]
- rrss 6y agoWarren Buffett is in an entirely dissimilar boat, because Warren Buffett does not have enormous losses to carry forward, and therefore actually pays significant personal income tax ($1.8 million on personal income of $11.5 million in 2015). https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161010005859/en/Tax-Facts-Donald-Trump https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161010005859/en/Tax...
- christophilus 6y agoI meant that he pays well below what you or I pay. He's in a lower tax bracket than his secretary. $1.8M on $11.5M is what? Something in the ballpark of 15%? He should be in the highest tax bracket. That's my point. The tax laws favor the wealthy, and they shouldn't.
- pwinnski 6y agoThat's a completely unrelated and distracting issue. Trump paid $750 total, which is not 15% of anything. He could have easily paid $0, as he did before becoming POTUS. His team picked a tiny number above zero starting in 2016 when he was elected. This is completely and totally unrelated to the capital gains tax rate.
- boringg 6y agoI’m more concerned about how this information was sourced. Did it get leaked from the IRS or an accountant? It feels like that part of the story is the bigger deal. I love the NYT but this feels kind of like doxing and makes me very uncomfortable.
- onetimeusename 6y agoI think that is unclear at the moment and the NYT is not revealing it's source according to this[1]. It says they are declining to provide the tax filings to protect their sources at the bottom. [1]: https://apnews.com/article/archive-personal-taxes-donald-trump-f0e2af5f9f99de9d30dc6b9097121188 https://apnews.com/article/archive-personal-taxes-donald-tru...
- ComputerGuru 6y ago> It feels like that part of the story is the bigger deal. and I imagine people saying just that is why they avoid all mention: they don’t want that to become the story, because that’s how strategists deflect the attention from the actual headlines.
- boringg 6y agoExactly and that’s why I’m concerned about it because it robs the content of its full impact.
- pravda 6y ago
- kache_ 6y agoReminder; tax avoidance != tax fraud.
- microcolonel 6y agoI honestly don't understand why “tax avoidance” is meant to sound so naughty. Almost everyone avoids taxes, almost every time they might be subject to a tax; some people are just better at it. When you fail to collect taxes from somebody who is following the law, that is a matter for your tax code, not a moral failing of the filer.
- yokaze 6y agoQuite a different thing though if you are head of government which is supposed to collect taxes from people like you, and you see no need to change that.
- microcolonel 6y ago> Quite a different thing though if you are head of government which is supposed to collect taxes from people like you, and you see no need to change that. His predecessors/competitors talk a big game, but they were in office for eight years; take a lucky guess whether it got easier or harder, under the Obama-Biden administration, for people in Donald Trump's business to deduct and reclassify almost all of their taxable transfers and incomes. If there's an improper or unjustifiable deduction in these filings, then complain about that. Nobody has any obligation, and essentially nobody has any private reason, to pay taxes that they do not owe. If you think they should owe taxes, then complain that they don't owe them, not that they won't pay what they don't owe.
- eli_gottlieb 6y agoAs I recall, the Republican Congress actually cut funding to the IRS for tax enforcement during Obama's second term, so we actually don't know who's committing tax fraud. The audits just aren't being done.
- maskedoffender 6y agoDoesn't this just prove that he's not in office to get rich but that he's willing to sacrifice for the sake of his country?
- denkmoon 6y agoHow does the forced release of Trump's tax returns demonstrate anything about his willingness to sacrifice for the USA?
- maskedoffender 6y agoHe's been losing money in office and has been donating his paycheck every quarter. He's not being president for the money.
- ryanworl 6y agoDoes anyone have any more detailed information about the losses, specifically from the real estate side of his businesses? Real estate can frequently show a tax loss from depreciation while generating cash flow. But depreciation only applies to improvements, and it sounds like the golf courses are a significant part of the losses. I don't know enough about golf courses to determine if depreciation is a big factor here.
- tiziniano 6y agoBetter show tax loss and not pay taxes on it.
- Anon84 6y agoAl Capone thought the same thing
- coldtea 6y agoAs did almost every business on earth...
- koheripbal 6y agoAl Capone didn't declare any of his earnings - that's a big difference. My business also shoes a tax loss almost every year - that's just normal good money management. Amazon showed a tax loss literally every year ever.
- mandevil 6y agoThe article says "What the tax records for Mr. Trump’s businesses show, however, is that he has lost chunks of his fortune even before depreciation is figured in. The three European golf courses, the Washington hotel, Doral and Trump Corporation reported losing a total of $150.3 million from 2010 through 2018, without including depreciation as an expense." So this is negative cashflow, not counting depreciation.
- ryanworl 6y ago
- ck2 6y agoJust like (multiple) bogus draft deferments despite being a football player, where someone else has to go in your place (and possible chance they got killed) when you pay no taxes, someone else is carrying your burden. $140 Billion in annual loses means you got to spend a lot of that and enjoy those benefits in the meanwhile.
- jeffbee 6y agoThe HN angle on this article is the NYT accounts system wasn't prepared for the deluge of subscriptions, fell over, served 500s for hours, and now they made the article free-to-all (as far as I can tell) in response. Get these journos some capacity planners and SREs.
- koolba 6y agoI would have thought the HN angle is where do you draw the line between journalism and data leaks or identity theft? As much as large parts of the public wants to see his taxes, that doesn’t meant a newspaper can hide behind journalism to act as an intermediary to leak them. If that’s the standard then I’m sure it’d be fine for an intern at Joe Biden’s doctors office to leak his full medical records right? EDIT: I find it hilarious that this comment was immediately flagged and hidden from default view.
- yread 6y agoOn the other hand he called for a foreign country to hack into his opponents' email and release all of it. So, he obviously doesn't value privacy that much
- smitty1e 6y agoTasteless joke, or substantive call for a privacy invasion? One must to keep in mind that cognitive bias has us parsing those we dislike quite literally, while giving those we fancy a pass. And that's true in all 57 states.
- mhh__ 6y agoConsidering that the Trump Foundation was legally dissolved by force (For Fraud, Nepotistic payments etc.) I'm slightly amazed by some of this.
- throwawaysea 6y agoIt seems unethical to obtain private financial records and leak all this information. I’ve had journalists reach out to colleagues every now and then, looking for private and confidential information and this feels similar, where it isn’t whistleblowing but simply digging up information that no one has any right to. If this is OK, is everything okay? Would any disclosure of private information get a pass? Is doxxing okay if it aligns with a journalist’s personal politics?
- yokaze 6y agoThat depends on the public interest. Are we talking about random John Does taxes which has a total of X dollars income/wealth? X alone might be large enough warranting some public interest, on top of that, it isn't random Joe, it is a well known public figure, which derives its publicity in the very facts the article is investigating: his claims of personal wealth and business acumen. Finally, that person is actually signing the tax code he is (ab?)using and he is facing a public vote on being in that position. So, no it's not okay in every case, but this is hardly every case.
- throwawaysea 6y agoBut it is still his finances as a private citizen, and not - for example - the details of some government agency. A matter being of interest to a subset of all citizens doesn’t justify its disclosure. We should either require disclosure by law (perhaps to an auditing firm instead of the public) or treat this as a purposeful and malicious leak of private, confidential information. I don’t think news media should get a pass on this.
- yokaze 6y agoIf you say, a politician should only judged by ones public affairs and policies, and the press should not dig into private matters, I would generally agree. But that is a major change, and to my knowledge never been the case in the US. Public figures, and once in a public office especially, have been in the news due to private information, usually more of the sexual kind, which resulted in the defenestration of said politician. But to reiterate, the president chose to run for a public office on claims about his private finances. Those are challenged by information obtained by the press. And the press did not release the private, confidential information, but reported about information within it, pertaining to his claims. That is bona fide, what the press is supposed to do. The person who gave the information to the press, on the other hand, likely has broken the law.
- hartator 6y agoRaw documents somewhere? I feel taxes are so complicated that they can be tweaked to feed any narrative.
- mellosouls 6y agoOT (apologies): I submitted a link about Trump's nomination for Supreme court; it was immediately killed as political. I checked to see if there was a thread about RBG before submitting. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24602735 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24602735 Now there is a story about Trump's taxes that is ok to discuss. Genuine question: how is it determined what is ok to discuss on HN and what is political?
- softwaredoug 6y agoBased on people flagging submissions. I flagged this for the reasons you cite. Surprised it’s lasted so long.
- tom_mellior 6y agoWhat "reasons" did the parent cite, and why exactly did you flag this? There is no rule against political content on HN.
- softwaredoug 6y agoSpecifically you’re supposed to flag anything not within the guidelines[1]: > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. 1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- tom_mellior 6y agoThanks. I understand how you're reading this, but my observation is that actual practice on HN is less restrictive. On the front page at the moment I'm writing this, there are at least four more or less political articles: - Uber secures right to continue operating in London https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24614806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24614806 - Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24611558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24611558 - French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24610266 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24610266 - Assange Trial Day 18 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24613979 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24613979 The first two of these apply to "tech" companies, so you might include them in "hacking and startups" (though hardly under "intellectual curiosity"). The third is purely political and is definitely something that TV news would cover. But it visibly strikes a chord with HN's readership. The fourth is also political; Wikileaks involves email and web pages, but what doesn't nowadays? Maybe you find that all of these should be flagged too. Maybe only the third one, I don't know. The weasel wording with "most stories" and "probably off-topic", in practice, allows these through, which is why I said that there is no (let me add: clear, explicit) rule against political submissions.
- cwhiz 6y agoI want to see the actual documents before I believe this. I’m fine with the NYT refusing to make their source but I can’t think of any reason to keep the documents secret.
- bmitc 6y agoIf Trump applied for even the most basic national security related job that required the lowest level of security clearance, he absolutely would be denied. And yet, this man is president of the United States.
- koheripbal 6y agoBecause the government doesn't get to decide who can be President. It's up to the people.
- notmyname9173 6y agoThe government, as specified in the US Constitution, requires that candidates for president must be born in the US and over 35 years old. Assuming those requirements (and any others that may be added via amendments over time) are met, THEN it's up to the people.
- diggernet 6y agoEven that is up to the people. The US Constitution is the rules, set by the people, which the Federal government must follow.
- digitaltrees 6y agoThe people didn’t decide with this information because it was deliberate withheld.
- bmitc 6y agoIt was a point of contrast. The U.S. has a man incapable of almost any job you can think of as its president.
- dhab 6y agoA related question: Can a president pre-emptively pardon himself? I think there was some deal being worked on Jeff Epstein's case where that could have happened.
- mikequinlan 6y agoThe Constitution doesn't restrict presidential pardons except in cases of impeachment. If Trump pardoned himself I am sure eventually the Supreme Court would have to rule on it.
- stjohnswarts 6y agoI highly doubt the president can pardon himself from anything. That flies in front of all precedent and I don't even think the conservatives on the supreme would be stupid enough to uphold such an idiotic attempt to escape justice.
- panda-giddiness 6y agoThis is actually an excellent, unsettled legal question. On the one hand, the Constitution provides almost no restrictions on pardons. On the other hand, there's a strong argument for precluding self-pardons based on the principle that "no man shall be the judge of his own case", despite no such principle being expressly expounded in the Constitution.
- webinvest 6y agoHe isn’t able to pardon himself from his obstruction of justice charges but if he steps down near the end and lets Mike Pence be president, Mike Pence can pardon him.
- Simulacra 6y agoTax evasion is illegal; avoidance is not.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- s9w 6y ago> After The Times declined to provide the records, in order to protect its sources no sources. It's made up.
- yosito 6y agoThis is important news, but I don't understand the insistence of some people to post political news to this website. Seriously, this has very little to do with tech. Post it to Reddit or Twitter. I do not come here to read about Trump.
- TooCreative 6y agoHN is not a tech news site. HN is pretty much the only place on the web where intelligent discussion takes place. That is why I hope for every news I am interested in to be discussed here. Reddit discussions are complete garbage. The top comment on r/news for this article is this one line: "That's $750 more than I thought he paid.". It has over 19k likes.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y agoIt may be better than Reddit, but it's still not designed for political discussion. The voting algorithms lead to echo chamber formation or vapid, emotion-driven comments being given positive feedback without careful moderation. Human nature combined with anonymity means comments can dissolve into pointless bickering. Basically, it would require a ton of moderation(with the discussions picking up on the biases of the moderators), and even then it would still devolve with many comments about illegal immigration, gender issues, or pretty much any other social issue that involves identity.
- yosito 6y ago> HN is not a tech news site. Yeah, ok. Sure.
- koheripbal 6y agoIf there were more details, or if he was doing something complex and interesting, I'd say post it. ...but everything I see in the article is normal tax avoidance that pretty much every family business does.
- digitaltrees 6y agoNo this not. Trump claimed not one but two annual losses greater than $1B. So large that they were among the largest losses ever recorded. He obtained a refund that requires direct congressional oversight but seems to have been paid prematurely and without the required act of Congress. And in fact the entire basis of the refund—that giving up all ownership of his Atlantic casinos allowed him to transfer their losses to his tax filings—cannot be maintained because he in fact kept 5% of the casios meaning the entire tax write of would be disallowed and may have been fraudulent filed in the first place is not something your random family business does. Further, even if that were the case that doesn’t mean it’s legal. You don’t get to pay employees consulting fees as well.
- Fjolsvith 6y agoWhat? The article is based on a 100% anonymous source with no proof, and they are still calling for Trump to release his taxes? How can HN not call BS on this? HN cries BS if someone makes a COVID claim and doesn't provide links to valid studies. Shame on you all.
- digitaltrees 6y agoIf the report is false or incorrect Trump could easily correct the record by releasing his records.
- kthejoker2 6y agoI think Trump missed his calling. He clearly could make a mint showing people how to maximize their tax avoidance schemes, The Apprentice-style. Can you imagine how awesome a Fox News show it would be to have him Gordon Ramsay-style berating some mom and pop real estate brokerage in Cincinnati? Saving someone millions of bucks, sticking it to "The Feds" and "suckers"? As a grievance-based populist, he'd have all that clout and people stoking his ego and we'd have an actual functional government. Just a real shame. Someone should call him up and start a negotiation ...
- digitaltrees 6y agoIf this is true. Congress is complicit. They literally had to approve the $72 million refund and have known about it this entire time.
- Cd00d 6y agoI came here to see the comments from the "people who don't pay taxes shouldn't be allowed to vote" crowd. I don't see any. I guess the belief that we should withhold participation in our democracy is limited to the poor.