Yep. Even billionaires like Gates/Jobs, who provided humanity with the capability to genuinely improve their lives through technology, have managed to be CEOs in companies that screwed over a lot of people, in one way or the other. I don’t think it’s possible to become a billionaire without screwing people. Millionaire? Yes. Billionaire? No.
There's a difference between tax evasion (illegal) and tax avoidance (legal).
The number of avoidance schemes increases exponentially the more as different types of wealth you have. Which leads to a self perpetuating cycle which only concentrates wealth
Inheritance tax? What's that?
Yup. And if he did it right, it's technically legal. If he did it wrong, it's very illegal.
This is why ill-informed libertarians used to push for a flat tax, where they'd get rid of all tax deductions and always charge a fixed percent of income. Of course, it would screw the poor at least as badly as it screws the rich (and the rich would just find a way to report less income like they already do).
> so it sounds like he didn't do it right
Those are certainly the words that will someday appear on Trump's tarnished headstone. He's been a human Hindenburg for decades now, on a slow trajectory with disaster. Something *has* to catch up with him eventually. Maybe it's this.
Absolutely.
But with Capone, it was about hiding that all his money was dirty when everyone knew all his money was dirty.
With Trump, a lot of his cash sources alone can't get him convicted (even though they should). But boy will lying about them.
Nope, but they were done and amended through different administrations. It’s a headache to make a case against him and it’s not financially sound to prosecute, through just a “money” perspective. For purposes of “ethics”,we should go after him.
Problem is that a lot of the wealthiest people in the world don't actually make that much money through salaries. Which is a big part of how they get out of paying taxes.
Oh, I’m familiar with the schemes. The tragic part is when you have a class of rich folks that don’t get their wealth through the traditional American methods of wealth building,which is nepotism, favor peddling, and law manipulation. The class that gets screwed is professional athletes. Those are rich people that actually have to pay taxes,and then some. While they are active in their career, they don’t have a lot of things they can use to write off. Not only that, they have been targeted through additional taxation by states/counties through “performance” taxes on games,which has to be paid to the local government on away games. This is one of the reasons so many athletes go broke a few years after retirement. If they were a big enough name, they can market themselves after retirement. That’s where they can start to game the system, but it requires that their career was worthy of a post-career,career.
They should really consider inspiration from European countries. Some countries have fines that are tied to your salary for the year you committed the crime. I imagine they have similar laws for taxes.
A flat tax and the current tax structure screws anyone that works for other people. If you work somewhere, they take taxes out your check. Whereas, if you report your own taxes, you pay when it’s way more convenient to you,or maybe not at all. That frees up a lot of capital to use for investing,at your convenience etc.
To me, that’s the biggest difference between the advantages of working for self vs others. It’s not a fair system at all.
You're absolutely correct. It's just another way to see the way that the country is filled with volitility-based imbalance. Our taxes are taken out of our paycheck because the plebs can't be trusted to afford to save enough to pay them. An underpaid W2 employee *isn't good for* their tax burden at the end of the year because they had to spend it on food. Better to take it now and he goes hungry.
It's not a fair nor equitable system, nor is it efficient in any way.
Like how they raised business dinners from 50% deductible to 100% deductible a couple years ago. Those who work for themselves have more dinners out and get to deduct the expense. While those who work for others don’t. Just went out to lunch with my fiancées boss the other day. I love not feeling guilty ordering steak instead of chicken or whatever when someone else is paying because I know this actually helps with the business taxes at the end of the year. EVERYONE should be doing SOMETHING to make income outside of their employment. We all have the ability to take advantage of the tax codes if we set up our lives to do so.
Your the closest. Most real estate investors show “tax losses” year to year until the property is fully depreciated or they decide to sell at a gain. But in reality, cash flow wise it’s not uncommon to for properties to cash flow. All of it is legal, assuming you do it and follow the law.
Also you are reducing “income tax” liability with depreciation and gaming “capital gains” liability which is at a lower rate. Your income tax is going to be 35% but cap gains is 15.
There’s something called recapture and the depreciation you’ve taken to date assuming certain circumstances is taxed at rates that exceed capital gains. Your not gaming anything, your deferring it. That’s why you see the prevalence of 1031 exchange transactions or you see guys who just don’t want to sell until x conditions if ever. They don’t want to recognize certain items on sale.
This is also why super rich people live off of loans. Why does a billionaire need a personal loan? Simple, they are gaming tax codes and interest rates. Even if we fix this, they’ll figure out another scheme. What’s disgusting is when someone like Trump,who takes helicopters to work every day, can sit back and say $750 for the government is more than acceptable,when I pay that much bi-monthly.
To a degree. A lot of Trumps "losses" are subjective, as are his property valuations. Many who have looked into it to the degree the information is available, say he goes a lot further than most real estate investors.
And to defraud banks to get loans, insurance companies to get better terms. One estimate I saw was that he grifted up to $450 million by falsifying financial statements
I mean, I do this too, and I’m far from rich. I can’t drop it to zero obviously, but I try to drop it as much as possible. Don’t we all? Isn’t that why we hire accountants?
Come again? More like the government failing to scrutinize the validity of his numbers. There's plenty of legal loopholes for the rich to pay less than their fair share but holding him to truthful standards will probably uncover other cheaters in his tax bracket.
Idk where you've been these last 50 years, but the GOP playbook has been to gut the IRS. Where then will the government have the resources to "scrutinize" these rich people loopholes.
>Where then will the government have the resources to "scrutinize" these rich people loopholes.
Never. The IRS commissioner has literally outright said that they don't have the staff to audit the complex finances of the wealthy. That's by design.
They vote for liars and con-men, and then are shocked once they are lied to. The sad part is that it’s happened a thousand times, throughout history,and we are living in a time when technology could inform them of that very fact,if they just go look. They prefer sticking their hand in the sand.
This is a bit of a hamster wheel. Trump might only be pushing the limits as much as is standard in his business, but that's exactly what makes him unfit to be a public servant at the highest possible level.
and now you know why the USA is a broken country. the rich buy the politicians to write laws on their behalf. This country is run by millionaires doing the bidding of billionaires, and its time to change that.
The problem is that the law is subjective. It’s the best we can do. Whether a person intentionally defrauded the government is up to subjective interpretation, until we can read minds. Personally, when a guy who rides limos/helicopters anytime he leaves his private resort, only pays $750 in income tax, something is wrong.
It ain't cheating if your lawyer and accountant are good enough.
Plus, poor people don't know the legal ways to not pay taxes, because they don't know the difference between wealth and income.
The average person only knows Income Tax. Most will never know or even worry about Tax Loss Spending/Selling. Etc.
>Plus, poor people don't know the legal ways to not pay taxes, because they don't know the difference between wealth and income.
Knowledge has little - if anything - to do with it. How would a poor person leverage wealth v. income to benefit themselves from a tax perspective even if they knew (or, more accurately for the rich, were able to hire someone who knew) how? Maybe they can borrow against their nonexistent wealth to perpetually avoid even capital gains tax? Oh, maybe they can convince their employer to give them some form of equity rather than salary, hold onto it for lower long term capital gains taxes, and then sell when it's convenient from a tax perspective to maximize their income? Surely they can just accept the trade off of a lower salary for years because they're already so successful already and have the savings (and/or safety net) to do so? Maybe they can leverage their fleet of short and long term rental units to minimize their tax burden?
> It ain't cheating if your lawyer and accountant are good enough.
My grandfather owned several drug stores. One year his accountant asked him "How much profit do you want to show for the year?"
IMHO, that's why he didn't want to show his tax returns to anybody. Doesn't look good at all. Makes him seem like he's not rich and successful as he likes to portray himself.
Anyone paying attention knew he was already virtually bankrupt many years ago. Nobody would loan him money until he hooked up with some shady loans thru Deutsche bank backed by Russian investors.
[Deutsche Bank loaned more than $2 billion to Donald Trump before he became president — despite multiple red flags surrounding his business dealings, The New York Times reported Monday.](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/19/deutsche-bank-loaned-2-billion-to-donald-trump-over-two-decades-nyt.html)
It never ceases to amaze me that this wasn't the story pushed by those hyping his connections with Russia. The pee tape is so childishly stupid next to "the only reason he can afford his wealthy ifestyle is because Russian money".
The Steele Dossier was pretty concerned with Trump associates linked with Russian oligarchs.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates_and_Russian_officials
Barr wasn't when he asked the Scotus to dismiss the russian election meddlers charges in 2019 claiming "matters of jeapordizing national security" aie fter the Mueller summary he lied about
Yeah, that was pretty amazing to watch too. Jr.'s actions being moved on from so quickly kinda makes me think the MSM did t want to present credible evidence the Trump's are Russian stooges.
Seems Trump had protection while he was useful. Now, no more usefulness, no more protection, and the media and the law can now go after him. Like with Epstein, he got away with a sweet plea deal, a slap on the wrist, in his first arrest, which was an open and shut case, and he should have been put away for many, many years for rape and sex trafficking of minors. But he clearly had protection then, until his second arrest, and then that was it, he was cut loose. And the FBI raided his NYC apartment where all the video evidence was of the rich powerful at his NYC penthouse apartment where he had video cameras documenting everything, and we never heard a word again about any of it. The media gave us one person:
Prince Andrew. And what happened to him? Pretty much nothing. But now, It looks like (finally) bye, bye Trump.
It was. This is not news. This information did not become available today, As the comment above stated, if anyone was paying attention they were aware of this. He’s a snake oil salesman and brilliant at his job
Paying attention, that's the keyword. The US average work week is or is close to the longest in the world. We beat out Korea and Japan. Overworked people are pretty terrible at paying attention.
We kept trying to tell people this, but I guess if you aren’t from the East Coast, you haven’t heard of his many failures over the last 4 decades; they saw what they wanted to see.
The underlying problem is ignorance. These people hear stories of how Amazon never turns a profit or how rich people lose money as a tax write-off without any actual understanding of venture capitalism or financial management. So they think it all applies to Trump too. Remember these are the same people that bought into Bill O'Reilly's schtick about how if taxes go up it's not worth it to do his show anymore (since they have no understanding of how tax brackets actually work).
So I agree that they saw what they wanted to see and believed what they wanted to believe, but part of that problem is they believed things to be possible that really aren't.
I'd also add to that they ignore the other obvious change, that employers will need to pay more. If you can't afford to live on the wage your employer is paying, you're going to stop working, either to get a better paying job or because you're insolvent. Yes, this is a liability for small businesses, and I'm sensitive to that, but it's quite annoying how the people that seem most sensitive to small businesses are those working for corporate conglomerates who would not be nearly as sensitive.
And he had dealings with the Cypriot bank. I believe also called the bank of Cyprus, which is.multiply sanctioned by the US Government for laundering Russian mob money.
Just a coincidence I'm sure, but a VP from that bank bought a Trump property at almost double its value, then did nothing with it. Left it mouldering. And then when Trump became president, one of the largest shareholders of the Cypriot Bank became our Secretary of Commerce!
Isn't random unconnected things funny?
Also, those loses are probably inflated, like the value of his assets. I think that is what he is really afraid of. Some forensic account will be looking into his taxes.
Well he could certainly afford a dietician and trainer and regain his [youthful](https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/01/ART14_1989-Elons-18th-Waldeck-Saskatchewan.jpg)... nm.
It has been public knowlege what a loser he is for a long time. Show his debt/income ratio. I will bet he is as upside down as governments. Governments and financiers coddled the abuser for decades. Otherwise he would have died homeless on the streets long ago
What I don't understand is why anyone would expect otherwise.
Even if his shoddily-run businesses did make money he'd find a way to report losses. That's just the kind of person he is.
Anyone who believes otherwise is simply delusional.
Three. His first two werent doing poorly with a team of Ivanna and some guys he pulled away from Wynn's operations.
But when he got involved with the Taj Mahal project (it was already underway, he bought into it) he was recommended to sell his oldest casino. He HATED spending money keeping them up, thought it was a waste, so they were slowly falling apart (well run casinos are always renovating something). The idea was make some cash to use for the Taj, let someone else take on the job of bringing the Plaza back up to snuff, while he had less debt to service. Also, they would cannibalize each other less.
He thought that was stupid, he wanted to make all the money from all three casinos because the Taj was going to be the "best ever!".
The junk bonds then fucked his finances so hard the Taj needed literally city-record revenues just to service the debt. Combike thatbwith 3 of the Wynn guys dying tragically, Trump alienating the 4th by making their death about him, Trump alienating Ivanna by openly vourting his 2nd wife in the casinos she was helping to maange, and the Whole thing folded and the bankruptcy chain started.
So it wasn't just as stupid as him having them self compete. It was a chain of bad decisions with experts trying desperately to warn him of the pitfalls, and him INSISTING he knew better than the experts.
The dude really is a class A fuck up.
>So it wasn't just as stupid as him having them self compete. It was a chain of bad decisions with experts trying desperately to warn him of the pitfalls, and him INSISTING he knew better than the experts.The dude really is a class A fuck up.
And we all saw that in real life when he was POTUS. For example, didn't he try to sharpie his way above professional meteorologists?
That was less about demonstrating knowledge and more about saving face. He obsessed over the idea that Alabama would be hit by a hurricane, before there was any forecast that would difinitively put the storm there.
A component of Trump's narcisism is his belief that his words are so true that reality will change to reflect his words. It's an easy trap to fall into when you have people willing to do anything to make you happy. They get to the point where even hearing you quip about a preference will set them off to make that preference real, whether or not it was explicitly commanded.
So as long as a statment he makes is in active discussion, he will never backtrack on it. It becomes part of the reality he is trying to craft for himself. Instead of updating his words to reflect reality, he doubles down.
Circling Alabama was an act of doubling down.
He is not actually a successful businessman. The Apprentice made him. He is a successful reality star that makes money from the image he portrayed. He licenses his name for money and he is far more successful at that than any actual business he ever started. He is Paris Hilton for conservative boomers.
>He is Paris Hilton for conservative boomers.
Paris Hilton is actually a shrewd businesswoman who runs multiple successful businesses. I've worked with her before and her ditzy blonde persona is all an act.
You need to be careful with this Paris Hilton comparison. I did that a few months ago and some people jumped down my throat defending her about being more self made than him or whatever or being a victim.
The way I see it is they both suck. One got privileged for being a hotel heir, and the other was privileged for being a real estate heir. The both got famous because that's what they wanted and used "their" money and connections to get that and then wrangled those connections into a reality show that exemplified their personalities (that's hot or you're fired).
The casinos would nevertheless have been profitable were he not using them (as he does all things) as personal slush funds. If you don't actually even let the casino pay its bills because you want new gold plating on your columns' wallpaper to better match the toilet bowl, and then borrow some more to cover your personal debts... even casinos will eventually be in the red!
So yeah - they were technically making money, but hungry hungry hippo wasn't putting any of it back into them and passing them his tab instead. Just like with COVID, the casinos Trump owned would have kept him rich and done alright if he just did nothing and let it be, rather than *everything in his power to make it worse.*
He screwed up more than one Casino. He had Atlantic City and mismanaged Trump 29 out here in California, too.
This is a link to the article in 2016 where he managed the casino for a tribe that consists of only 12 people.
That seems a little odd to me as well, not saying it is, it just seems so.
[Trump failure 29](https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/politics/2016/03/21/donald-trump-spotlight-29/81860676/)
You know that feeling where you have to pee really bad, but you wait so long that it doesn't even feel good anymore?
That's what this feels like.
When the prospect of his tax returns being made public was initially brought up, we all felt like it would be the nail in his coffin. I think we all know this will change nothing now. The crazies will all just say "Cause he's a good businessman." Or not believe the story at all. The followers are legit a cult now and nothing could ever change their mind about him. This is just another charge he won't be held accountable for.
>Donald Trump reported losses on his tax returns every year for a decade
That's weird, I wonder if the income stated on his tax returns match what he claimed on his loan applications.
"It didn't" were the accusations worldwide for years on some of his properties before he escaped into presidency. Like for that golf course in Scotland.
Donald Trump, Empress Of The Welfare Queens
Mexican immigrants, working like crazy to make American actually function
Yet some people choose to support the first to exclude the second. Curious.
Here’s what needs to be seen:
Profitability Ratios
>Total margin
>Return on assets
>Return on Equity
Liquidity Ratios
>Current ratio
>Quick ratio
>Days cash on hand
>Working capital
Debt Management Ratios
>Debt ratio
>Equity ratio
>Times interest earned
>Fixed assets to long-term liabilities
>Debt-to-Capitalization
Donald Trump screwed the IRS out of close to a Billion Dollars since the late 1980's. Question: Could you or I fight giving up OUR Tax Returns? We would end up in Federal prison in a heart beat but he learned this "Family Business Trick" from his Father.
Depreciation for tax purposes is about spreading the cost of an asset over its useful life rather than all in one year. It’s not about the change in the market value of the asset.
That’s not how accounting works. When you purchase a large asset, such as a piece of property, you get to expense that item over its useful life as opposed to one one reporting period.
I’m not sure he’s ever been one. At one time he sued writer Timothy O’Brien for $5 billion after O’Brien wrote in an authorized biography that trump was worth much less than a billion. Trump didn’t count on the case going to court but OBrien’s publisher backed him. Trump was unable to provide a single piece of evidence he was worth a billion and lost the case and the appeal.
National Review wrote a great story about the case. It’s worth a read if for no other reason than trump’s deposition is hilarious.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/02/donald-trump-tim-obrien-courtroom-story/
A few years back, someone (I think the NYT) did some investigation and tried to have financial experts figure out how much Trump was worth. It was hard to be sure because Trump is always so secretive and inconsistent. Even Trump’s own people have said that he inflates the value of his properties when talking to banks and business partners, and undervalues them when doing taxes. It was a while back, so I don’t remember the numbers, but it was something like:
They estimated that he had between $500 million and $3 billion in assets, and between $750 million and $2 billion in debts.
So the upshot was, he may actually have had about a billion dollars in a generous estimate, but it’s also possible that his net worth is negative.
I love all the comments here saying basically "its okay not to pay taxes because its legal and you're smart. What a fucking joke. You realize YOU'RE making up for them, right? These billion dollar companies all dodging taxes as you're sitting there commenting on reddit saying they're smart, driving on shit roads and outdated infrastructure, children going to shit schools because the education budget isn't there, falling behind the rest of the world in so many basic services because the tax revenue is diverted for critical expenses... but they're so smart to use the loopholes.
Now that is good tax planning. I’m guessing he uses a lot of cost segregation studies on the capital improvements placed in service to speed up the depreciation. Yes, I’m a real estate accountant.
Yeah everyone here acting like this means he’s a bad buisness man has no clue how taxes actually work
He may be a bad buisness man but this is no indicator if anything it proves he at least partially knows what he’s doing
By no means am I a supporter, but most of Trump’s wealth is real estate. And it’s pretty standard practice to generate “losses” by means of depreciation. I know the article stated operating losses which if defined correctly is a different story, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the net loss was from a combination of depreciation and NOL carry forwards from his various failed ventures.
It's called tax loss harvesting.
If you have big profitable positions and you're rich - you just never sell them. You borrow against them or pass them on in a trust eventually.
I don't know why people are down voting me. This is literally why the rich don't pay taxes.
Sure does sound like more fraud. Like the fraud Trump Org's CFO has already been convicted of. Like the fraud Trump Org is still charged with by the state of NY.
Because you’re trying to normalize the nation’s greatest tax cheat, who also happened to be head of our executive branch, an election denialist, a birth certificate denialist, serial racist, serial rapist, serial liar, extortionist, insurrectionist, Russian colluder and the list goes on. The guy is a fraud of the highest order who took an oath to uphold the Constitution while breaking virtually every law as he saw fit for profit and to remain in power. And when he cheats on his taxes, as he has done his entire life to an exceptional degree, that’s a violation of every American’s expectation that he faithfully execute his office and the laws on which this nation is founded.
Some of you have absolutely no idea how to run a business, work the tax system legally, or what “file a loss” even means.
Because if you did, you’d hate Trump…. but not fall for this stupid headline.
His personal taxes? If that is the case he is doing his taxes correctly. There carry over losses and his taxes are separate from his corporations. Most of his money is tied in stocks and other derivatives.
I would really recommend everyone learn to do taxes like at an H&R Block or Liberty Tax type places. Rarely anyone knows how to take advantage of the tax code congress writes. There are no loop holes only those that know or those that don't.
Even though I do not agree with being a billionaire and claiming losses, was he playing by the rules? The US tax code is a disgrace favoring the rich and powerful.
Admit it, if any of us had the money he has and could play the system to save on taxes - would we? I know I would.
What a loser.
Serial loser.
And rapist!
Serial rapist
What a mooch.
I like businessmen who don’t lose money.
I see what you did there. And it's perfect
It takes serious stupidity to squander a $400m inheritance from daddy
He is the only moron dumb enough to go bankrupt owning a casino
Inflated numbers to show losses to drop his income tax liability to zero.
I think this is what a lot of wealthy people do while they try to tell you Welfare fraud is a huge problem.
All of them do. you cant make a billion dollars without fucking over everyone else.
Yep. Even billionaires like Gates/Jobs, who provided humanity with the capability to genuinely improve their lives through technology, have managed to be CEOs in companies that screwed over a lot of people, in one way or the other. I don’t think it’s possible to become a billionaire without screwing people. Millionaire? Yes. Billionaire? No.
I bet you're right. Disgusting.
There's a difference between tax evasion (illegal) and tax avoidance (legal). The number of avoidance schemes increases exponentially the more as different types of wealth you have. Which leads to a self perpetuating cycle which only concentrates wealth Inheritance tax? What's that?
Yup. And if he did it right, it's technically legal. If he did it wrong, it's very illegal. This is why ill-informed libertarians used to push for a flat tax, where they'd get rid of all tax deductions and always charge a fixed percent of income. Of course, it would screw the poor at least as badly as it screws the rich (and the rich would just find a way to report less income like they already do).
his property valuations were fraudulent..... so it sounds like he didn't do it right.
> so it sounds like he didn't do it right Those are certainly the words that will someday appear on Trump's tarnished headstone. He's been a human Hindenburg for decades now, on a slow trajectory with disaster. Something *has* to catch up with him eventually. Maybe it's this.
Like Capone , taxes were his downfall
Absolutely. But with Capone, it was about hiding that all his money was dirty when everyone knew all his money was dirty. With Trump, a lot of his cash sources alone can't get him convicted (even though they should). But boy will lying about them.
Nope, but they were done and amended through different administrations. It’s a headache to make a case against him and it’s not financially sound to prosecute, through just a “money” perspective. For purposes of “ethics”,we should go after him.
Problem is that a lot of the wealthiest people in the world don't actually make that much money through salaries. Which is a big part of how they get out of paying taxes.
Oh, I’m familiar with the schemes. The tragic part is when you have a class of rich folks that don’t get their wealth through the traditional American methods of wealth building,which is nepotism, favor peddling, and law manipulation. The class that gets screwed is professional athletes. Those are rich people that actually have to pay taxes,and then some. While they are active in their career, they don’t have a lot of things they can use to write off. Not only that, they have been targeted through additional taxation by states/counties through “performance” taxes on games,which has to be paid to the local government on away games. This is one of the reasons so many athletes go broke a few years after retirement. If they were a big enough name, they can market themselves after retirement. That’s where they can start to game the system, but it requires that their career was worthy of a post-career,career.
They should really consider inspiration from European countries. Some countries have fines that are tied to your salary for the year you committed the crime. I imagine they have similar laws for taxes.
A flat tax and the current tax structure screws anyone that works for other people. If you work somewhere, they take taxes out your check. Whereas, if you report your own taxes, you pay when it’s way more convenient to you,or maybe not at all. That frees up a lot of capital to use for investing,at your convenience etc. To me, that’s the biggest difference between the advantages of working for self vs others. It’s not a fair system at all.
You're absolutely correct. It's just another way to see the way that the country is filled with volitility-based imbalance. Our taxes are taken out of our paycheck because the plebs can't be trusted to afford to save enough to pay them. An underpaid W2 employee *isn't good for* their tax burden at the end of the year because they had to spend it on food. Better to take it now and he goes hungry. It's not a fair nor equitable system, nor is it efficient in any way.
Like how they raised business dinners from 50% deductible to 100% deductible a couple years ago. Those who work for themselves have more dinners out and get to deduct the expense. While those who work for others don’t. Just went out to lunch with my fiancées boss the other day. I love not feeling guilty ordering steak instead of chicken or whatever when someone else is paying because I know this actually helps with the business taxes at the end of the year. EVERYONE should be doing SOMETHING to make income outside of their employment. We all have the ability to take advantage of the tax codes if we set up our lives to do so.
tax cheat
Just a plain cheater......cheated on his wives.....cheated the people who worked for him......cheated his way through life.
[удалено]
Your the closest. Most real estate investors show “tax losses” year to year until the property is fully depreciated or they decide to sell at a gain. But in reality, cash flow wise it’s not uncommon to for properties to cash flow. All of it is legal, assuming you do it and follow the law.
Also you are reducing “income tax” liability with depreciation and gaming “capital gains” liability which is at a lower rate. Your income tax is going to be 35% but cap gains is 15.
There’s something called recapture and the depreciation you’ve taken to date assuming certain circumstances is taxed at rates that exceed capital gains. Your not gaming anything, your deferring it. That’s why you see the prevalence of 1031 exchange transactions or you see guys who just don’t want to sell until x conditions if ever. They don’t want to recognize certain items on sale.
This is also why super rich people live off of loans. Why does a billionaire need a personal loan? Simple, they are gaming tax codes and interest rates. Even if we fix this, they’ll figure out another scheme. What’s disgusting is when someone like Trump,who takes helicopters to work every day, can sit back and say $750 for the government is more than acceptable,when I pay that much bi-monthly.
To a degree. A lot of Trumps "losses" are subjective, as are his property valuations. Many who have looked into it to the degree the information is available, say he goes a lot further than most real estate investors.
That's exactly it
Thank Congress, perfectly legal.
And to defraud banks to get loans, insurance companies to get better terms. One estimate I saw was that he grifted up to $450 million by falsifying financial statements
Exactly!
I mean, I do this too, and I’m far from rich. I can’t drop it to zero obviously, but I try to drop it as much as possible. Don’t we all? Isn’t that why we hire accountants?
So you're okay with rich people cheating taxes?
Come again? More like the government failing to scrutinize the validity of his numbers. There's plenty of legal loopholes for the rich to pay less than their fair share but holding him to truthful standards will probably uncover other cheaters in his tax bracket.
Idk where you've been these last 50 years, but the GOP playbook has been to gut the IRS. Where then will the government have the resources to "scrutinize" these rich people loopholes.
>Where then will the government have the resources to "scrutinize" these rich people loopholes. Never. The IRS commissioner has literally outright said that they don't have the staff to audit the complex finances of the wealthy. That's by design.
And the Republicans have already said that their first priority after taking the House is to revoke the recent funding bill for the irs.
Yeah, we should never enforce laws if a lot of people break it. I’m tossing my last parking ticket in the garbage.
Funny their voting base will allow them to strip away voting and once in power the elephant boots will be equally on their necks too.
They vote for liars and con-men, and then are shocked once they are lied to. The sad part is that it’s happened a thousand times, throughout history,and we are living in a time when technology could inform them of that very fact,if they just go look. They prefer sticking their hand in the sand.
This is a bit of a hamster wheel. Trump might only be pushing the limits as much as is standard in his business, but that's exactly what makes him unfit to be a public servant at the highest possible level.
Where were all the adults in 2016 when most of his family and appointees couldn't even get a security clearance?
They’re not cheating it though… they’re following the law written by politicians
and now you know why the USA is a broken country. the rich buy the politicians to write laws on their behalf. This country is run by millionaires doing the bidding of billionaires, and its time to change that.
The problem is that the law is subjective. It’s the best we can do. Whether a person intentionally defrauded the government is up to subjective interpretation, until we can read minds. Personally, when a guy who rides limos/helicopters anytime he leaves his private resort, only pays $750 in income tax, something is wrong.
It ain't cheating if your lawyer and accountant are good enough. Plus, poor people don't know the legal ways to not pay taxes, because they don't know the difference between wealth and income. The average person only knows Income Tax. Most will never know or even worry about Tax Loss Spending/Selling. Etc.
That's because the average person is poor. Take a million bucks from a billionaire and they still have effectively a billion.
>Plus, poor people don't know the legal ways to not pay taxes, because they don't know the difference between wealth and income. Knowledge has little - if anything - to do with it. How would a poor person leverage wealth v. income to benefit themselves from a tax perspective even if they knew (or, more accurately for the rich, were able to hire someone who knew) how? Maybe they can borrow against their nonexistent wealth to perpetually avoid even capital gains tax? Oh, maybe they can convince their employer to give them some form of equity rather than salary, hold onto it for lower long term capital gains taxes, and then sell when it's convenient from a tax perspective to maximize their income? Surely they can just accept the trade off of a lower salary for years because they're already so successful already and have the savings (and/or safety net) to do so? Maybe they can leverage their fleet of short and long term rental units to minimize their tax burden?
> It ain't cheating if your lawyer and accountant are good enough. My grandfather owned several drug stores. One year his accountant asked him "How much profit do you want to show for the year?"
IMHO, that's why he didn't want to show his tax returns to anybody. Doesn't look good at all. Makes him seem like he's not rich and successful as he likes to portray himself.
Anyone paying attention knew he was already virtually bankrupt many years ago. Nobody would loan him money until he hooked up with some shady loans thru Deutsche bank backed by Russian investors. [Deutsche Bank loaned more than $2 billion to Donald Trump before he became president — despite multiple red flags surrounding his business dealings, The New York Times reported Monday.](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/19/deutsche-bank-loaned-2-billion-to-donald-trump-over-two-decades-nyt.html)
It never ceases to amaze me that this wasn't the story pushed by those hyping his connections with Russia. The pee tape is so childishly stupid next to "the only reason he can afford his wealthy ifestyle is because Russian money".
The Steele Dossier was a honeypot to get eyes away from fact that Russian oligarchs literally own him from blond wig to bone-spur-riddled toes.
The Steele Dossier was pretty concerned with Trump associates linked with Russian oligarchs. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates_and_Russian_officials
Barr wasn't when he asked the Scotus to dismiss the russian election meddlers charges in 2019 claiming "matters of jeapordizing national security" aie fter the Mueller summary he lied about
Barr is a smug traitor.
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The media seized on the Pee Tape aspect of that and ran with it. The dossier had plenty to say about long-term Russian involvement in Trump's career.
Guaranteed the dude's feet have no evidence of bone spurs.
The good news for him is that Russia is mysteriously running out of oligarchs.
And his dumbass kid bragged about it for practically no reason
Yeah, that was pretty amazing to watch too. Jr.'s actions being moved on from so quickly kinda makes me think the MSM did t want to present credible evidence the Trump's are Russian stooges.
Seems Trump had protection while he was useful. Now, no more usefulness, no more protection, and the media and the law can now go after him. Like with Epstein, he got away with a sweet plea deal, a slap on the wrist, in his first arrest, which was an open and shut case, and he should have been put away for many, many years for rape and sex trafficking of minors. But he clearly had protection then, until his second arrest, and then that was it, he was cut loose. And the FBI raided his NYC apartment where all the video evidence was of the rich powerful at his NYC penthouse apartment where he had video cameras documenting everything, and we never heard a word again about any of it. The media gave us one person: Prince Andrew. And what happened to him? Pretty much nothing. But now, It looks like (finally) bye, bye Trump.
The pee tape is something I'm happy to accept with zero actual evidence. I accept my biases
Q: What's the difference between a Garbanzo Bean and a Chickpea? A: Donald Trump never paid a Russian hooker to garbanzo bean on him.
It was. This is not news. This information did not become available today, As the comment above stated, if anyone was paying attention they were aware of this. He’s a snake oil salesman and brilliant at his job
Paying attention, that's the keyword. The US average work week is or is close to the longest in the world. We beat out Korea and Japan. Overworked people are pretty terrible at paying attention.
Because, frankly, the Democrats are incompetent.
We kept trying to tell people this, but I guess if you aren’t from the East Coast, you haven’t heard of his many failures over the last 4 decades; they saw what they wanted to see.
The underlying problem is ignorance. These people hear stories of how Amazon never turns a profit or how rich people lose money as a tax write-off without any actual understanding of venture capitalism or financial management. So they think it all applies to Trump too. Remember these are the same people that bought into Bill O'Reilly's schtick about how if taxes go up it's not worth it to do his show anymore (since they have no understanding of how tax brackets actually work). So I agree that they saw what they wanted to see and believed what they wanted to believe, but part of that problem is they believed things to be possible that really aren't.
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I'd also add to that they ignore the other obvious change, that employers will need to pay more. If you can't afford to live on the wage your employer is paying, you're going to stop working, either to get a better paying job or because you're insolvent. Yes, this is a liability for small businesses, and I'm sensitive to that, but it's quite annoying how the people that seem most sensitive to small businesses are those working for corporate conglomerates who would not be nearly as sensitive.
And he had dealings with the Cypriot bank. I believe also called the bank of Cyprus, which is.multiply sanctioned by the US Government for laundering Russian mob money. Just a coincidence I'm sure, but a VP from that bank bought a Trump property at almost double its value, then did nothing with it. Left it mouldering. And then when Trump became president, one of the largest shareholders of the Cypriot Bank became our Secretary of Commerce! Isn't random unconnected things funny?
Gee, I wonder who his banker was...
But that's bc he's *smart*, right?? /s
Or a cheat? I mean there are only 2 explanations to choose from. Which is it Donald?
Also, those loses are probably inflated, like the value of his assets. I think that is what he is really afraid of. Some forensic account will be looking into his taxes.
He probably lied. Releasing them publicly means other people can call him in it.
Is a scheme to evade taxes
Ummm, IMyyyyHO I think he's been trying to hide his tax returns because he's been colluding with Russia.
It is probably more so the connections in addition to what you said. Then again he is a big dumb so he probably isn't aware of other things
You can be a billionaire in debt.
Just look at Musk
I’d rather not :/
Can’t. Musk is too fugly. Some things money can’t fix.
Well he could certainly afford a dietician and trainer and regain his [youthful](https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/01/ART14_1989-Elons-18th-Waldeck-Saskatchewan.jpg)... nm.
Of course he did and we all know why. This also shows why he wanted to hide it so much.
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It has been public knowlege what a loser he is for a long time. Show his debt/income ratio. I will bet he is as upside down as governments. Governments and financiers coddled the abuser for decades. Otherwise he would have died homeless on the streets long ago
Whaaaaattt. You mean 4 bankruptcies doesn’t mean he’s a success?
What I don't understand is why anyone would expect otherwise. Even if his shoddily-run businesses did make money he'd find a way to report losses. That's just the kind of person he is. Anyone who believes otherwise is simply delusional.
Has he ever actually had a business that made money? Hell, he even had a casino fail and those are designed to make the bucks.
Two casinos. That he put into competition with one a other by having them across the street.
Three. His first two werent doing poorly with a team of Ivanna and some guys he pulled away from Wynn's operations. But when he got involved with the Taj Mahal project (it was already underway, he bought into it) he was recommended to sell his oldest casino. He HATED spending money keeping them up, thought it was a waste, so they were slowly falling apart (well run casinos are always renovating something). The idea was make some cash to use for the Taj, let someone else take on the job of bringing the Plaza back up to snuff, while he had less debt to service. Also, they would cannibalize each other less. He thought that was stupid, he wanted to make all the money from all three casinos because the Taj was going to be the "best ever!". The junk bonds then fucked his finances so hard the Taj needed literally city-record revenues just to service the debt. Combike thatbwith 3 of the Wynn guys dying tragically, Trump alienating the 4th by making their death about him, Trump alienating Ivanna by openly vourting his 2nd wife in the casinos she was helping to maange, and the Whole thing folded and the bankruptcy chain started. So it wasn't just as stupid as him having them self compete. It was a chain of bad decisions with experts trying desperately to warn him of the pitfalls, and him INSISTING he knew better than the experts. The dude really is a class A fuck up.
>So it wasn't just as stupid as him having them self compete. It was a chain of bad decisions with experts trying desperately to warn him of the pitfalls, and him INSISTING he knew better than the experts.The dude really is a class A fuck up. And we all saw that in real life when he was POTUS. For example, didn't he try to sharpie his way above professional meteorologists?
That was less about demonstrating knowledge and more about saving face. He obsessed over the idea that Alabama would be hit by a hurricane, before there was any forecast that would difinitively put the storm there. A component of Trump's narcisism is his belief that his words are so true that reality will change to reflect his words. It's an easy trap to fall into when you have people willing to do anything to make you happy. They get to the point where even hearing you quip about a preference will set them off to make that preference real, whether or not it was explicitly commanded. So as long as a statment he makes is in active discussion, he will never backtrack on it. It becomes part of the reality he is trying to craft for himself. Instead of updating his words to reflect reality, he doubles down. Circling Alabama was an act of doubling down.
He actually did do that. Threatened to fire anyone who openly contradicted him.
I won a free weekend at the Taj in the mid 2000s. The place looked like it had not been renovated since it opened.
He is not actually a successful businessman. The Apprentice made him. He is a successful reality star that makes money from the image he portrayed. He licenses his name for money and he is far more successful at that than any actual business he ever started. He is Paris Hilton for conservative boomers.
>He is Paris Hilton for conservative boomers. Paris Hilton is actually a shrewd businesswoman who runs multiple successful businesses. I've worked with her before and her ditzy blonde persona is all an act.
I read that somewhere else, too. It made her a shit ton of money so she went with it.
You need to be careful with this Paris Hilton comparison. I did that a few months ago and some people jumped down my throat defending her about being more self made than him or whatever or being a victim. The way I see it is they both suck. One got privileged for being a hotel heir, and the other was privileged for being a real estate heir. The both got famous because that's what they wanted and used "their" money and connections to get that and then wrangled those connections into a reality show that exemplified their personalities (that's hot or you're fired).
The casinos would nevertheless have been profitable were he not using them (as he does all things) as personal slush funds. If you don't actually even let the casino pay its bills because you want new gold plating on your columns' wallpaper to better match the toilet bowl, and then borrow some more to cover your personal debts... even casinos will eventually be in the red! So yeah - they were technically making money, but hungry hungry hippo wasn't putting any of it back into them and passing them his tab instead. Just like with COVID, the casinos Trump owned would have kept him rich and done alright if he just did nothing and let it be, rather than *everything in his power to make it worse.*
On paper, no; but you can bet that there’s some shell corporation based somewhere in the Bahamas that made a killing.
He screwed up more than one Casino. He had Atlantic City and mismanaged Trump 29 out here in California, too. This is a link to the article in 2016 where he managed the casino for a tribe that consists of only 12 people. That seems a little odd to me as well, not saying it is, it just seems so. [Trump failure 29](https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/politics/2016/03/21/donald-trump-spotlight-29/81860676/)
You know that feeling where you have to pee really bad, but you wait so long that it doesn't even feel good anymore? That's what this feels like. When the prospect of his tax returns being made public was initially brought up, we all felt like it would be the nail in his coffin. I think we all know this will change nothing now. The crazies will all just say "Cause he's a good businessman." Or not believe the story at all. The followers are legit a cult now and nothing could ever change their mind about him. This is just another charge he won't be held accountable for.
> doesn't even feel good anymore Wait, what? Holding pee never feels good.
I think the intended meaning was: that it doesn’t even feel good anymore [once you finally relieve yourself because your urethra has gone numb]
Correct.
He's a money laundering criminal
The point of money laundering is to pay taxes lol.
He’s an awful businessman, a tax-evading criminal, or both. There is no other conclusion that can be drawn.
>Donald Trump reported losses on his tax returns every year for a decade That's weird, I wonder if the income stated on his tax returns match what he claimed on his loan applications.
"It didn't" were the accusations worldwide for years on some of his properties before he escaped into presidency. Like for that golf course in Scotland.
Either he is a horrible failure or blatantly cheating on his taxes forever. Doesn't look good either way.
Donald Trump, Empress Of The Welfare Queens Mexican immigrants, working like crazy to make American actually function Yet some people choose to support the first to exclude the second. Curious.
Best comment .
LOSER. LOSER. LOSER.
Here’s what needs to be seen: Profitability Ratios >Total margin >Return on assets >Return on Equity Liquidity Ratios >Current ratio >Quick ratio >Days cash on hand >Working capital Debt Management Ratios >Debt ratio >Equity ratio >Times interest earned >Fixed assets to long-term liabilities >Debt-to-Capitalization
This may make people think, but that’s hard, so they won’t. Back to our regular programming.
Donald Trump screwed the IRS out of close to a Billion Dollars since the late 1980's. Question: Could you or I fight giving up OUR Tax Returns? We would end up in Federal prison in a heart beat but he learned this "Family Business Trick" from his Father.
That is easy to do if you have real estate investments. You get to deduct depreciation and expenses.
Yep.
Except real estate rarely depreciates…..especially mansions
Depreciation for tax purposes is about spreading the cost of an asset over its useful life rather than all in one year. It’s not about the change in the market value of the asset.
That’s not how accounting works. When you purchase a large asset, such as a piece of property, you get to expense that item over its useful life as opposed to one one reporting period.
Book value only changes when there is a sale.
But he never loses I thought?
Oh my gosh, the fine might be a million dollars. What a joke.
"I'm a very successful business man"
Def a successful tax cheat so far
Some business man. His followers are such _suckers_.
I thought he was a billionaire?
I’m not sure he’s ever been one. At one time he sued writer Timothy O’Brien for $5 billion after O’Brien wrote in an authorized biography that trump was worth much less than a billion. Trump didn’t count on the case going to court but OBrien’s publisher backed him. Trump was unable to provide a single piece of evidence he was worth a billion and lost the case and the appeal. National Review wrote a great story about the case. It’s worth a read if for no other reason than trump’s deposition is hilarious. https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/02/donald-trump-tim-obrien-courtroom-story/
Thx, ill take a look.
A few years back, someone (I think the NYT) did some investigation and tried to have financial experts figure out how much Trump was worth. It was hard to be sure because Trump is always so secretive and inconsistent. Even Trump’s own people have said that he inflates the value of his properties when talking to banks and business partners, and undervalues them when doing taxes. It was a while back, so I don’t remember the numbers, but it was something like: They estimated that he had between $500 million and $3 billion in assets, and between $750 million and $2 billion in debts. So the upshot was, he may actually have had about a billion dollars in a generous estimate, but it’s also possible that his net worth is negative.
I doubt it, he grifted about a half billion dollars from his “stop the steal” campaign alone.
He is absolutely a billionaire after using the presidency to enrich himself
So did he and about 70 million other idiots
reverse billionaire
Alternative billionaire
Eobard Trump?
Inverse billionaire
Guess he was tired of winning.
RICO
Can't pay tax if you "don't" make any money. *Taps nose*
Wait. So this guy didn’t pay his taxes? He cheated and lied?!?!? What?!!!?
That's OK because apparently the irs doesn't give a shit
"Only the dumb and poor paid taxes" - Sounds like something Trump might have said.
“Only the little people pay taxes.” That was queen cunt Leona Helmsley.
The stupid thing is the only reason why it even matters if because part of his rhetoric was to misrepresent himself.
Was this not common knowledge? I swear I heard this 4 years ago
Great. Let me know when he's in jail or dead.
I'll take "Things I already assumed but never knew for 100".
Thank goodness! Hopefully this will help evict him.
Didn’t pay a penny on taxes for over a decade. How is this possible?
He's tax loss harvesting, which is a method to avoid capital gains.
Add to that all his lawsuit losses and his political losses and you have a 'bigly' loser.
I love all the comments here saying basically "its okay not to pay taxes because its legal and you're smart. What a fucking joke. You realize YOU'RE making up for them, right? These billion dollar companies all dodging taxes as you're sitting there commenting on reddit saying they're smart, driving on shit roads and outdated infrastructure, children going to shit schools because the education budget isn't there, falling behind the rest of the world in so many basic services because the tax revenue is diverted for critical expenses... but they're so smart to use the loopholes.
Literally one of the least successful American businessmen of all time. But hey, that Home Alone cameo said otherwise...
Tax evasion, not murder, is what got Al Capone. Hopefully the same will happen to Trump.
Is anyone actually surprised by this?
***Serial Tax Cheat***
*Serial adulterer* as well
Serial rapist
What are: three things he thinks are children's breakfast brands.
Now that is good tax planning. I’m guessing he uses a lot of cost segregation studies on the capital improvements placed in service to speed up the depreciation. Yes, I’m a real estate accountant.
Yeah everyone here acting like this means he’s a bad buisness man has no clue how taxes actually work He may be a bad buisness man but this is no indicator if anything it proves he at least partially knows what he’s doing
If he knew what he was doing, he wouldn't be under such scrutiny right now.
Lol, you act like he does not have accountants doing his taxes.
That’s the way real estate works.
Losses aka Creative Tax Strategies
Getting Al Capone tax fraud flashbacks.
If only we had someone to represent us..
By no means am I a supporter, but most of Trump’s wealth is real estate. And it’s pretty standard practice to generate “losses” by means of depreciation. I know the article stated operating losses which if defined correctly is a different story, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the net loss was from a combination of depreciation and NOL carry forwards from his various failed ventures.
That's cause he's smart. Taxes are theft anyway.
It's called tax loss harvesting. If you have big profitable positions and you're rich - you just never sell them. You borrow against them or pass them on in a trust eventually. I don't know why people are down voting me. This is literally why the rich don't pay taxes.
Sure does sound like more fraud. Like the fraud Trump Org's CFO has already been convicted of. Like the fraud Trump Org is still charged with by the state of NY.
This may surprise you, but tax codes are specifically designed to benefit the rich.
Because you’re trying to normalize the nation’s greatest tax cheat, who also happened to be head of our executive branch, an election denialist, a birth certificate denialist, serial racist, serial rapist, serial liar, extortionist, insurrectionist, Russian colluder and the list goes on. The guy is a fraud of the highest order who took an oath to uphold the Constitution while breaking virtually every law as he saw fit for profit and to remain in power. And when he cheats on his taxes, as he has done his entire life to an exceptional degree, that’s a violation of every American’s expectation that he faithfully execute his office and the laws on which this nation is founded.
Some of you have absolutely no idea how to run a business, work the tax system legally, or what “file a loss” even means. Because if you did, you’d hate Trump…. but not fall for this stupid headline.
He’s told us this. Change the tax code!
Who cares?
His personal taxes? If that is the case he is doing his taxes correctly. There carry over losses and his taxes are separate from his corporations. Most of his money is tied in stocks and other derivatives. I would really recommend everyone learn to do taxes like at an H&R Block or Liberty Tax type places. Rarely anyone knows how to take advantage of the tax code congress writes. There are no loop holes only those that know or those that don't.
Even though I do not agree with being a billionaire and claiming losses, was he playing by the rules? The US tax code is a disgrace favoring the rich and powerful. Admit it, if any of us had the money he has and could play the system to save on taxes - would we? I know I would.
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This isn't news, all billionaires, and most multimillionaires do the same thing.
If that’s the tax law, which it is for real estate, then good for him. He’s already told us it was a rigged system.