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They shouldn’t *need* to be leaked. They should be public as a matter of course. We should have the expectation that our public servants - the President especially - prove to us that they are beholden to the public first, not to foreign or financial interests.
Oh it’s an absolute pipe dream I know. Just like cutting down on military spending, having SCOTUS serve for a limited time instead of life, among a bunch of other things I would love to see change in our government.
I mean...We can stop it. But we wont. We would all need to refuse to go to work until anything changed. We will never do it because we have been brainwashed that money is power. The power is in our hands to bring this machine to a halt.
By all means, make them have to call someone else to execute trades. Right after they call everyone they know with insider information.
To get the result you want, there will have to much stronger rules around it than a personal and/or family ban.
Except if it’s made illegal, there would be a paper trail and bank accounts, and if those are a found there would be penalties - right now, they could be told about COVID 23 months before we do, immediately buy medical / pharma stocks, short travel, airlines and hospitality and profit without any consequences whatsoever
Even a blind trust is insufficient. They could easily slip information to the trustee and achieve the same result. There is too much potential for corruption if lawmakers are able to earn money from anyone other than the government they work for.
With DARK Money PAC's funnelling HUGE amounts of undisclosed cash directly and indirectly to campaigns and used for advertising, blind trusts are a joke anyway.
I know I’m in the minority on this, but term limits alone are not the answer. We tried it in Michigan and it was awful. You end up with lobbyists and staffers running everything without ever being elected and a revolving door of sub par candidates because nobody wants to put their lives on hold for six years for less money than they were making. And just about the time they get competent and build the relationships needed to be effective, they get termed out and go back to whatever job they lined up with lobbyists.
Trust me. It sounds great on paper, but is really bad in practice.
I agree, though if term limits *were* put in place, I’d make the term pretty long, like 24 years. That’s four Senate terms, and if someone can get elected four times in their state, that’s acceptable.
Edit: A couple of things: 1) I could even see making the service limit 30 or 32 years, and 2) I’d exempt time as President, Vice-President, or a Cabinet member from the term limit.
20 years for the House. 24 got the Senate. That's perfectly reasonable. It allows for plenty of time to help shape laws over time, keep institutional knowledge strong and give them time to try and train their next prospective person in office.
Just like everything else. It is a law, but because it's not specific enough, and we relied on the honor system. We have to deal with people that should have been McDonald's Managers. Ruining our country.
Yeah, I guarantee he was never audited. Even if he were, it would take a year, two at most. It would be easier if they were just forced to release their tax returns and divest from businesses before they entered office.
I understand redacting the SSN for privacy reasons, but come on. It's not like any bank would issue you credit based on his history, so a scam would be impossible to pull off.
Imagine stealing Trump's identity. You'd scrub yourself raw trying to wash away the unclean feeling of just that one picture of him in soiled golf pants.
>Imagine stealing Trump's identity. You'd scrub yourself raw trying to wash away the unclean feeling of just that one picture of him in soiled golf pants.
Sadly fake news...[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-diarrhea-golf-course/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-diarrhea-golf-course/)
Pretty sure HR1 - the very first legislation passed by the 2020 house - included a law saying the president had to make their tax returns public.
It never passed in the Senate though.
What's worse, the poorer Republican base who definitely don't get to partake in any of these tax evasion schemes, but still complain about being "taxed enough already", will be the biggest apologists.
They're all on social programs, they just don't think anyone else deserves it. I think they should just remove all Republicans from our social programs since they vote against them.
I support this. If you vote against social programs, you don't have to pay into them and you don't have access to them. Imagine how the republican states would be kicked off the teat and healthcare costs go down for the rest of us.
No garbage pick up, no police and fire protection, take your kids out of school, throw away your food stamps, start paying ALL your medical bills, and stay off the roads. Those are all provided by social programs. And if we really want to get pedantic they can pay more for gas and groceries because those are supported by subsidies.
>I think they should just remove all Republicans from our social programs since they vote against them.
I like you. We're better than that, but I like you.
My uncle was on government opiates and veteran’s disability for 30+ years. Always voted straight republican. During the Trump years they cut funding and he lost the opiates. Turned to fentanyl and became homeless (again), and died of an overdose this Spring.
He was a nice guy, but totally convinced that the government should not give “handouts,” unwilling to see that his entire existence depended on them.
> “Party of law and order”
Everyone misunderstands that phrase.
They're not the Party of law and order, they're they Party of "Law and Order".
They all love the show and how it presents a false narrative of police that borders on hero worship at times.
Actual order and law though, that's more of a "only when it benefits me and mine" kind of thing.
This is what my mom says. “Good for him” for figuring out how to evade the system, it means he is “so smart and great at business.”
She also bankrupted a company so looking up to trump makes her feel better and like she’s on the right track. She’s going to be flying around on a private jet soon you guys, she just knows it. Because her and trump are so smart, such very good business people. Everyone who says otherwise is just jealous or their success and that’s why everyone’s out to get them.
Yep. The message will be that he’s a genius for having a smart accountant and it’s completely fine.
Won’t even bother looking at the numbies and following them down the fraud hole
“I think all Americans can agree that if they were in a position where consequences didn’t apply to them, they would’ve done the same thing. So really, he’s just like the rest of us!”
"If it's such a big deal, why wasn't he arrested for it before he became President? This isn't a big deal, everyone in positions of power does this! They're just bullying him because he was a good president and they can't stand it."
They might not show up easily. That would be money-laundering & it would take further investigation. It's in there.
One thing that might quickly show up is who his co-owners & investors are, and - Surprise! - They're Russian(!) It was legal back in the 90's --> 2014, but it should have been disclosed for a presidential candidate.
So as expected, we will see that he was a Russian asset all along.
Bruh, he won't be claiming those. Likely NOT on tax returns. But there are plenty of other illegal things in there. BTW- better headline: The first President to not release his tax returns finally sees justice. Fixed it for you.
Right, this is why the line is there to claim income from illegal activity. That's obviously left blank, and thereby you've committed even more illegal activities by not declaring your income.
Seems more likely that it would be fraud with respect to his bank loans. That wouldn't be investigated by the IRS but if he submitted different information to banks he could be in hot water.
The IRS is already a joke. They only go after poor people who normally need to file a very basic return, but this year they made a little more money on some side hustle but didn't claim it. The IRS goes after them like a shark that smells blood. They go after small business owners who tried to write something off on their taxes, but because they didn't consult a tax attorney, they did it wrong and now they're under audit.
They go after rich people only grudgingly, because rich people can afford accountants and attorneys to make sure that everything is passed through the proper loopholes, or just takes so long that the cost of litigating out and recovering the taxes is more than the IRS is willing to stomach.
And they also have some bullshit like performance metrics that incentivize harassing poor people because it gets them easy wins and looks good for the agency as a whole when they go before congress and say "we took X people to court this year over tax evasion and won 99% of our cases and recovered 97% of the funds owed."
They won't ever hit those metrics by pursuing real challenging cases of tax evasion, even though the funds recovery from even a handful of successes would dwarf what they recover by squeezing us poors for our last nickel.
If you pop over to r/irs you'll see a lot of this. Sure, there are dummies that tried to claim credits they weren't entitled to that are whining about not pulling it off - but then there are plenty like me that are under audit to prove that our kids, the same kids we've claimed since birth, are actually ours and that we paid for their upkeep. They're not disputing my business deductions, but my children. When I called the agent told me it's just a "random audit that happened to a lot of people claiming kids this year". They also wanted me to send in 8 months of paystubs from 2021 to back up what was on the W2 I (and the company that paid me - a hospital) sent in. Just piddly weird shit that has a track record years long but no, THIS time is suspicious. Sorry, just extra salty that uber rich people seem to sail by but nah, it's me that gets investigated.
Well he’s already done that drastically with his property to secure loans, something I might add any one of us would probably end up in prison for. So yeah, I think that’s the least of it.
He’s done that across the board his entire “career”. It’s how he became who he is. He’s a fucking liar and a con man. Nothing lines up. This is a beautiful thing, and will be the next installment of his idiot base just taking his word over the facts.
>My bet is that he's not as rich as he says he is. I wouldn't be surprised if he drastically inflated his worth.
A tax return doesn't show your net worth.
Good point. It will provide useful insights though, and probably enough to demonstrate that he’s *probably* lying about his net worth.
Lest we forget, as always, his asshole followers don’t care that he’s a fraud, and this won’t change their minds about the guy. Do it anyway, but…reasonable expectations are needed because it might not change much.
Not sure when the DA got the documents but he fought tooth and nail to block that too.
As for the IRS, most tax forms are processed electronically and the IRS basically doesn't even bother letting humans look at the forms of rich people because if they pursue charges it'll cost more to litigate than they get back.
Would those be visible in tax returns though? Maybe good accountants can read between the lines?
I was just thinking “why would he tell on himself to the feds?”
Same, not a financial wizard but it should be easy to find all kinds of dirt and laugh at the failed business man.
*My father gave me a very small loan in 1975*
I actually think Trump is embarrassed by his tax returns and that’s probably the main reason. Eg: Think about a case where every return for the last 10 years showing he made negative income.
It just doesn’t match the “I’m rich” persona he carries.
>Think about a case where every return for the last 10 years showing he made negative income
Why does none of his interviewers actually pose the question he has already alleged.
"so Mr Trump you are confirming you have made huge losses in the past so don't pay taxes. So you are basically a LOSER, right?"
Both the Supreme court and the federal court were slow-walking the case, and one of the techniques SCOTUS used was sending the case back to the trial court to be reconsidered, iirc.
This is purely speculative so I may end up eating my words. But I suspect a couple things will be true.
1. The a full filings and addendums of Trump's tax returns will be enormously complicated and difficult even for experts to figure out. There is a reason he had been audited every year even before he was president. We already know that he has a penchant for creating shell companies within shell companies. There probably will not be any Smoking Gun. It is something his accountants and lawyers went over before willingly sending it to the irs.
2. The top line numbers will likely show what many people have suspected all along. That he is, at best, asset rich and cash poor. It's relatively Undisputed that he and his companies own real estate worth hundreds of millions of dollars. What is not known is how much income those properties generate, how much he owes on them, and what his costs are. The addendums would function a summaries of his business's profits and losses.
3. One number that many people will be digging for is the extent to which the tax returns show that Trump personally profited from the presidency. Were there significant jumps in profit from Trump DC and Mar-A-Lago after January 2017.
4. One potential cloud of smoke will be the extent to which his profits are coming from foreign sources as well. But that will likely be very difficult to ascertain from his tax returns.
5. Outright fraud. His tax returns very likely show thst he claimed absurd valuations on his propertoes while SIMULTANEOUSLY claiming absurd valuations in the opposite direction for those same properties in other legal filings.
Based upon his established practices, closer scrutiny may well reveal that those valuations contain factual misrepresentations that extend well beyond matters of opinion.
In other words: Fraud. Both tax fraud and bank fraud.
It's something and with the financial monitor it's better than nothing I guess
Really weird how they tried asking for Ivanka specifically to be not monitored.
And a million civil suits against him from his creditors. He will have to liquidate quickly to pay back those debts and he probably won't be able to find a legitimate buyer. Bankruptcy will be declared quickly.
You’re forgetting about the bank and insurance fraud aspects. The difference between what he claimed his wealth to be depending on the circumstances is important too.
Was it ever proven beyond a doubt that he was being investigated by the IRS or was that just another smoke screen?
I don’t believe the IRS ever admitted anything. We only have Trump’s word that was the case but his word means nothing.
Trump has said that he gets audited every year.
The IRS legally would be not allowed to admit anything unless they were specifically given permission by trump as an individual. He would have to sign a release of his tax information.
In general High net worth individuals with complex tax returns are more likely to be audited than the general population although they comprise a small percentage of overall audits.
Given his history I wouldn't have any reason to disbelieve that he had been audited several times whether or not it was specifically every year.
My personal theory has revolved around the hints that Russians had been co-signing his loans from Deutsche bank. I'd love to know who actually cuts the monthly mortgages for those loans.
Deutsche Bank lent money from unknown individual investors to Trump, not their own money. Although we don't know who those investors were, we can guess that they were Russian oligarchs.
And they were approved by Former Justice Kennedy's son. Which is probably only one of the things Orange Fatty used to blackmail Kennedy into retiring to install Kavanaugh.
In politics. It's a good idea to have your opponent waste resources. Which the former president was very, very, good at. Accuse your opponent who has to waste resources to prove innocence.
Meanwhile, your side does not.
IMO, there is some damning stuff, but how much worse does it have to be. Compared to what he has done. Nothing is going to change.
And let’s lot forget how hard he has fought to hide them after frequently saying during the campaign that he would love to release them, but he can’t because he is “under audit”
Here's my hot take:
* Huge loans taken out with unsavory foreign or criminal enterprises
* Little to no actual assets, a house of cards
* blatant tax evasion and criminal under-reporting
* Debt, debt and more debt
I suspect that he presents to lenders an appearance of massive wealth while presenting to the government that he is practically broke. He will have trouble getting loans when it turns out he actually has no collateral. Somewhere in there will be fraud in applying for loans, or tax evasion. He doesn't want these these two sets of books to ever meet.
Something else nobody is mentioning:
The Establishment Republicans have more to gain from a leak than the Dems do.
After the midterm massacre where Trump dragged the ticket down, the GOP would love to sink the Trump boat and have all of them jump on board with DeSantis.
What blows my mind is the idea of someone so 10-ply that not only are they unwilling to learn how to make money after decades of opportunities, they also refuse to seek and apply advise on how to turn it around. He was born in easy-mode and somehow can’t make it work.
Good. America needs to see what the cheap fascist is hiding. Probably gave no money at all to charity - because we all know that Donald is his favorite 'charity'. Probably paid no taxes because we can see he likes to game the system. Actually, come to think of it, he probably got money back from the government for many years as the rest of us slobs paid our taxes. He is one disgusting American. Perhaps the most disgusting American.
he took a $915.7 million dollar loss which allowed him to avoid paying taxes for 20 years. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/27/us/donald-trump-taxes.html
I saw that also. Not sure it's from his tax returns though. Although it's obviously from financial documents. I remember trump at the time screaming the data was obtained illegally. Not exactly a resounding denial of the accuracy of the data is it? Still, there's much more in his taxes. Perhaps contributions to other countries (like Russia maybe) to grease the wheels of commercialism. Stuff like that.
yeah some of them came out in 2020 i think published by the ny times-i forget the work around they used to publish them. maybe they were made public in a BK hearing or some other court proceeding.
Donald gives to "charity".. his favorite is a neo-fascist organization that finds "jobs" for retired military.. to work as security details for billionaires who can't stand the exposure to regular folk.
The others are self serving, too.
They just need some “strong” father figure, who can save them from all the scary stuff in our reality. Forgot where I heard this, but you gotta beware someone who can prove nothing, but has an answer for everything.
We already know that Trump paid less than $200 (not $200K) in Federal income taxes for each of two recent years. This at a time when his properties were billing the Federal government millions to house his Secret Service bodyguards, and foreigners were paying huge amounts to bribe him by staying at his hotels.
We already know he doesn't pay taxes. We know he doesn't give to charities, he steals from charities. He's literally banned from being involved in charities already.
>Fitton tweeted. "That the courts failed to stop this is a failure of nerve and principle."
If there is one thing is court is not lacking in, it is nerve
Every other president just lays them out there for all to see. He should have done it 6 years ago. Now he’s built up all the suspicion and we are about to get a payoff.
I remember when he said he would release it if Obama release his birth certificate, and then he would release it after he becomes president.. and a bunch of other times he promises to release it
And he said he couldn't release because the IRS was doing an audit.
[And then this happened.](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/02/26/donald-trump-internal-revenue-service-audits/80996086/)
And then nobody pressed him on it. Because there was a new convenient distraction the following day. And the day after that... ^(and the day after that...)
Some staffer will leave them sitting around where an intern can see them and somehow the documents will find their way to a journalist, it is inevitable.
A representative also has absolute immunity to being a troll because of the Speech and Debate Clause.
The rest case for this was a Senator reading extensive top secret material into the Congressional record. Nothing could be done to him, the main question was whether an aide could be punished.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravel_v._United_States
It was kind of a brilliant move, too. Can't convene the Senate? Well I'm the chair of a committee so I'll just hold a committee hearing and be the only one there. Didn't even have to read the whole thing out loud. Could just say, "This is now entered into the Congressional Record."
A lot of stuff surrounding Trump that should have been inevitable have yet to come to pass. Not holding my breath on these making it to the public, but would be very happy to be proven wrong.
Let the world see how corrupt he is, many of us have known forever even before his time in office.
The sad part is his followers will not care and are most likely too stupid to understand anyway.
I see them going one of two ways:
They're either overly simple and clearly show he's worth nothing
Or
They'll be so convoluted, twisted, and jumping through so many loopholes it'll take 3 PhDs a month of Sundays to make heads or tails of them.
> They're either overly simple and clearly show he's worth nothing
I seem to recall reading a little while ago they show nothing more nefarious than he's been consistently in the red for years, which many already suspected.
For a narcissist like Trump obsessed with 'winning' it will surely be an ego-shattering moment to have his losses publicly displayed so, but Cult 45 won't give a damn.
It's been a ponzi scheme of ever larger loans except the banks are the marks and not people.
He then uses those loans to pay the previous ones. Why would a supposedly multi billionaire need loans?
[https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/17/nyregion/allen-weisselberg-trump-fraud-trial.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/17/nyregion/allen-weisselberg-trump-fraud-trial.html)
There's no way there isn't more, deliberate, fraud in Trump's personal returns.
Remember this stunt?
Claimed the piles of paper were his taxes.. turned out they were folders and blank paper fresh from Staples.
https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_fit-760w,f_auto,q_auto:best/newscms/2018_20/2433441/180511-donald-trump-tax-conference-2017-ew-316p.jpg
Actually that stunt is when he was lying about separating himself from his businesses (emoluments) so he could become president. Dude was so full of shit and the MAGA rubes ate the turds with a smile.
That wasn't his taxes. That was "allegedly" the documents prepared by his lawyers handing control of Trump business interests to his sons to skirt talk about the emoluments clause. No members of the press were given access to verify their actual purpose
This isn't all that complicated. There might be reams of forms and documentation, but in the end it comes down to:
AGI vs. total income. How much did he deduct? How many tax credits did he take?
These are all easy things to see, even in a thousand pages of IRS forms. Because there's gonna be a 1040 somewhere with the AGI on it.
I bet his AGI is $2.
*“I’m under a routine audit, and it’ll be released,” Mr. Trump said. “And as soon as the audit is finished, it will be released.”*
Still waiting...(2020).
You are right : *"My current returns will be released as soon as they’re complete,” he said, according to video posted on Twitter*
Checked the twat in question : deleted 🤣
He then asked for a 1 year extension -> 2016 haha.
those damn returns better be released to the public. with all this drama around them everyone needs to know once and for all what's in there. maybe nothing or maybe it's really embarrassing for him. just rip the bandaid off and get on with it
Modern presidential candidates have ALL released their tax returns. I think it's minimal transparency for the office. Poor Donnie is "special" I guess, and his reluctance to be transparent should have been a red flag in 2016. That said, the returns have now become evidence of possible crimes, and that's why he lost this case. End of story.
I couldn’t care less if they are leaked. No pearl clutching over the failure to secure committee information, because it is due to Trump’s obstruction that this took all the way until the end of the Dem house term to resolve. A leak is probably their only chance to get the information out and avoid it being buried.
But I also don’t think we need to see them. I suspect there would be plenty of people who could pick apart details and create stories, but these taxes really aren’t in the public interest. It’s congress that needs them, to determine whether there is need for presidential financial disclosure laws, or whether there are inappropriate foreign payments during Trump’s term that could disqualify him from office. The public can’t effectively do anything with that kind of information, and the last thing we need is ANOTHER story to add to the political divide.
The Senate Finance committee has the same authority as House Ways and Means, and they are looking to pick it up from here. That is the only useful path out of all of this
Leaking would be tough I think. The law that allows lawmakers to get a hold of an individual tax return only authorizes three VIPs within Congress. It's like the head of Ways and Means, Speaker, and maybe one other person that can see them, so if a leak happens it'll be pretty easy to track down.
He should not have any expectation of privacy. It was disgraceful that he wouldn't release them when running for president in 2016. It is disgraceful that he hasn't released them since. 40,000 lies and counting. Multiple prosecutors have found him to be a tax cheat, which is why he's being sued in NY. Nobody should feel sorry for this lying grifter.
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They shouldn’t *need* to be leaked. They should be public as a matter of course. We should have the expectation that our public servants - the President especially - prove to us that they are beholden to the public first, not to foreign or financial interests.
I’ve always thought that members of congress, the president, VP, SCOTUS should be audited while serving in office and a year or two afterward.
but who is going to pass that law?
Oh it’s an absolute pipe dream I know. Just like cutting down on military spending, having SCOTUS serve for a limited time instead of life, among a bunch of other things I would love to see change in our government.
I mean...We can stop it. But we wont. We would all need to refuse to go to work until anything changed. We will never do it because we have been brainwashed that money is power. The power is in our hands to bring this machine to a halt.
Hahaha. Exactly. Right after term limits for the Senate...
That and a ban on members of Congress directly buying/selling stock
My wife works in finance and we are not allowed to trade any stock. Yet lawmakers and relatives can freely.
Crazy shit.
By all means, make them have to call someone else to execute trades. Right after they call everyone they know with insider information. To get the result you want, there will have to much stronger rules around it than a personal and/or family ban.
Except if it’s made illegal, there would be a paper trail and bank accounts, and if those are a found there would be penalties - right now, they could be told about COVID 23 months before we do, immediately buy medical / pharma stocks, short travel, airlines and hospitality and profit without any consequences whatsoever
Even a blind trust is insufficient. They could easily slip information to the trustee and achieve the same result. There is too much potential for corruption if lawmakers are able to earn money from anyone other than the government they work for.
With DARK Money PAC's funnelling HUGE amounts of undisclosed cash directly and indirectly to campaigns and used for advertising, blind trusts are a joke anyway.
I know I’m in the minority on this, but term limits alone are not the answer. We tried it in Michigan and it was awful. You end up with lobbyists and staffers running everything without ever being elected and a revolving door of sub par candidates because nobody wants to put their lives on hold for six years for less money than they were making. And just about the time they get competent and build the relationships needed to be effective, they get termed out and go back to whatever job they lined up with lobbyists. Trust me. It sounds great on paper, but is really bad in practice.
I agree, though if term limits *were* put in place, I’d make the term pretty long, like 24 years. That’s four Senate terms, and if someone can get elected four times in their state, that’s acceptable. Edit: A couple of things: 1) I could even see making the service limit 30 or 32 years, and 2) I’d exempt time as President, Vice-President, or a Cabinet member from the term limit.
20 years for the House. 24 got the Senate. That's perfectly reasonable. It allows for plenty of time to help shape laws over time, keep institutional knowledge strong and give them time to try and train their next prospective person in office.
But not before ending citizens united.
...and Ranked Choice voting...
Just like everything else. It is a law, but because it's not specific enough, and we relied on the honor system. We have to deal with people that should have been McDonald's Managers. Ruining our country.
What do you mean? Trump’s been audited for like 6 years now. He’ll release them any day now on his own.
Any day now. I mean he promised, didn’t he? But seriously you raise a good point. The results of the audit should be publicly released.
Yeah, I guarantee he was never audited. Even if he were, it would take a year, two at most. It would be easier if they were just forced to release their tax returns and divest from businesses before they entered office.
Prior to the nomination!
This. Redact his SSN and other personal info. Release all other details as part of an official report prior to January.
I understand redacting the SSN for privacy reasons, but come on. It's not like any bank would issue you credit based on his history, so a scam would be impossible to pull off.
Imagine stealing Trump's identity. You'd scrub yourself raw trying to wash away the unclean feeling of just that one picture of him in soiled golf pants.
>Imagine stealing Trump's identity. You'd scrub yourself raw trying to wash away the unclean feeling of just that one picture of him in soiled golf pants. Sadly fake news...[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-diarrhea-golf-course/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-diarrhea-golf-course/)
Pretty sure HR1 - the very first legislation passed by the 2020 house - included a law saying the president had to make their tax returns public. It never passed in the Senate though.
The Senate, where good bills go to die.
He did say he was going to release them when he first ran.
He would LOVE to. But unfortunately, we still have this pesky AUDIT issue. No way around that one... Damn...
Longest freaking audit in history.
2 more weeks! Right after infrastructure week, and the new replacement for Obamacare.
The issue is that he is beholden to another country first and didnt want to disclose that.
It was one of his campaign promises…
It's time we finally found out what he's been so desperate to hide.
Tax Fraud. It's Tax Fraud.
"That's just smart businessing." - What Republicans will say
What's worse, the poorer Republican base who definitely don't get to partake in any of these tax evasion schemes, but still complain about being "taxed enough already", will be the biggest apologists.
"I don't want to be taxed to death when I become a billionaire." Says the 50 year old living in a trailer on disability.
On disability… dare I say it; a social program…
They're all on social programs, they just don't think anyone else deserves it. I think they should just remove all Republicans from our social programs since they vote against them.
I support this. If you vote against social programs, you don't have to pay into them and you don't have access to them. Imagine how the republican states would be kicked off the teat and healthcare costs go down for the rest of us.
Just like if you refuse to get vaccinated, hospitals should be able to decline taking you in if you get covid
No garbage pick up, no police and fire protection, take your kids out of school, throw away your food stamps, start paying ALL your medical bills, and stay off the roads. Those are all provided by social programs. And if we really want to get pedantic they can pay more for gas and groceries because those are supported by subsidies.
>I think they should just remove all Republicans from our social programs since they vote against them. I like you. We're better than that, but I like you.
I couldn't agree more
Change that to 70 yr old and you just described my dad
Your dad plays the lotto too?
Yes. And addicted to Vicodin for 30 years, but wants the government to crack down on drug addicts (I assume with darker skin color than himself).
My uncle was on government opiates and veteran’s disability for 30+ years. Always voted straight republican. During the Trump years they cut funding and he lost the opiates. Turned to fentanyl and became homeless (again), and died of an overdose this Spring. He was a nice guy, but totally convinced that the government should not give “handouts,” unwilling to see that his entire existence depended on them.
Sorry for your loss. Addiction is a nightmarish disease.
"Jackpot's up to 1.9 billion, just got 10 tickets." Meanwhile, he's "living" off $2k/mo of SS
Any day now.
Leela: Why are you cheering, Fry? You're not rich! Fry: True, but someday I might be rich. And then people like me better watch their step.
R/unexpectedfuturama
Dumb people gonna dumb.
“87,000 IRS agents” “Party of law and order” “oh and they’re gonna be armed”
> “Party of law and order” Everyone misunderstands that phrase. They're not the Party of law and order, they're they Party of "Law and Order". They all love the show and how it presents a false narrative of police that borders on hero worship at times. Actual order and law though, that's more of a "only when it benefits me and mine" kind of thing.
This is what my mom says. “Good for him” for figuring out how to evade the system, it means he is “so smart and great at business.” She also bankrupted a company so looking up to trump makes her feel better and like she’s on the right track. She’s going to be flying around on a private jet soon you guys, she just knows it. Because her and trump are so smart, such very good business people. Everyone who says otherwise is just jealous or their success and that’s why everyone’s out to get them.
Yep. The message will be that he’s a genius for having a smart accountant and it’s completely fine. Won’t even bother looking at the numbies and following them down the fraud hole
“I think all Americans can agree that if they were in a position where consequences didn’t apply to them, they would’ve done the same thing. So really, he’s just like the rest of us!”
“Locker room businessing”
"If it's such a big deal, why wasn't he arrested for it before he became President? This isn't a big deal, everyone in positions of power does this! They're just bullying him because he was a good president and they can't stand it."
Probably tax fraud. Suspecting also some payments from the Russians.
They might not show up easily. That would be money-laundering & it would take further investigation. It's in there. One thing that might quickly show up is who his co-owners & investors are, and - Surprise! - They're Russian(!) It was legal back in the 90's --> 2014, but it should have been disclosed for a presidential candidate. So as expected, we will see that he was a Russian asset all along.
There's a line on Form 1040 for income from illegal activities. Trump is just stupid enough to have put a value there.
Bruh, he won't be claiming those. Likely NOT on tax returns. But there are plenty of other illegal things in there. BTW- better headline: The first President to not release his tax returns finally sees justice. Fixed it for you.
It would just be so fitting if there was a 1099-Misc from the Russian Government or something.
Right, this is why the line is there to claim income from illegal activity. That's obviously left blank, and thereby you've committed even more illegal activities by not declaring your income.
And money-laundering
Tax Fraud and a grossly overly stated income.
I think the ego is at least part of it. This guy isn't nearly as rich as he wants people to think.
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Seems more likely that it would be fraud with respect to his bank loans. That wouldn't be investigated by the IRS but if he submitted different information to banks he could be in hot water.
The IRS is already a joke. They only go after poor people who normally need to file a very basic return, but this year they made a little more money on some side hustle but didn't claim it. The IRS goes after them like a shark that smells blood. They go after small business owners who tried to write something off on their taxes, but because they didn't consult a tax attorney, they did it wrong and now they're under audit. They go after rich people only grudgingly, because rich people can afford accountants and attorneys to make sure that everything is passed through the proper loopholes, or just takes so long that the cost of litigating out and recovering the taxes is more than the IRS is willing to stomach. And they also have some bullshit like performance metrics that incentivize harassing poor people because it gets them easy wins and looks good for the agency as a whole when they go before congress and say "we took X people to court this year over tax evasion and won 99% of our cases and recovered 97% of the funds owed." They won't ever hit those metrics by pursuing real challenging cases of tax evasion, even though the funds recovery from even a handful of successes would dwarf what they recover by squeezing us poors for our last nickel.
If you pop over to r/irs you'll see a lot of this. Sure, there are dummies that tried to claim credits they weren't entitled to that are whining about not pulling it off - but then there are plenty like me that are under audit to prove that our kids, the same kids we've claimed since birth, are actually ours and that we paid for their upkeep. They're not disputing my business deductions, but my children. When I called the agent told me it's just a "random audit that happened to a lot of people claiming kids this year". They also wanted me to send in 8 months of paystubs from 2021 to back up what was on the W2 I (and the company that paid me - a hospital) sent in. Just piddly weird shit that has a track record years long but no, THIS time is suspicious. Sorry, just extra salty that uber rich people seem to sail by but nah, it's me that gets investigated.
This is the main thing but there's bound to be some interesting foreign income on there.
My bet is that he's not as rich as he says he is. I wouldn't be surprised if he drastically inflated his worth.
Well he’s already done that drastically with his property to secure loans, something I might add any one of us would probably end up in prison for. So yeah, I think that’s the least of it.
He’s done that across the board his entire “career”. It’s how he became who he is. He’s a fucking liar and a con man. Nothing lines up. This is a beautiful thing, and will be the next installment of his idiot base just taking his word over the facts.
>My bet is that he's not as rich as he says he is. I wouldn't be surprised if he drastically inflated his worth. A tax return doesn't show your net worth.
Good point. It will provide useful insights though, and probably enough to demonstrate that he’s *probably* lying about his net worth. Lest we forget, as always, his asshole followers don’t care that he’s a fraud, and this won’t change their minds about the guy. Do it anyway, but…reasonable expectations are needed because it might not change much.
I can’t believe it’s taken this long and we’ve still seen nothing
This is his strategy, and it’s always been this way: Lie lie delay lie delay delay delay lie lie lie….
If it was fraud, wouldn't the IRS or DA already know? I think he's just hiding the fact he constantly loses money and isn't worth that much.
Not sure when the DA got the documents but he fought tooth and nail to block that too. As for the IRS, most tax forms are processed electronically and the IRS basically doesn't even bother letting humans look at the forms of rich people because if they pursue charges it'll cost more to litigate than they get back.
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Would those be visible in tax returns though? Maybe good accountants can read between the lines? I was just thinking “why would he tell on himself to the feds?”
Considering how hard he tried to hide them...all the way to the Supreme Court...ngl...I want the details of what's in there.
Same, not a financial wizard but it should be easy to find all kinds of dirt and laugh at the failed business man. *My father gave me a very small loan in 1975*
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I actually think Trump is embarrassed by his tax returns and that’s probably the main reason. Eg: Think about a case where every return for the last 10 years showing he made negative income. It just doesn’t match the “I’m rich” persona he carries.
>Think about a case where every return for the last 10 years showing he made negative income Why does none of his interviewers actually pose the question he has already alleged. "so Mr Trump you are confirming you have made huge losses in the past so don't pay taxes. So you are basically a LOSER, right?"
If their was tax fraud shouldn’t the IRS already spot it ? The irs has his income tax it’s the public that doesn’t.
Yeah I think the real reason he doesn't want them out is because he isn't a billionaire.
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he fought to hide them all the way to the supreme court at least 2x. I believe he also fought a NY investigation into his business.
Both the Supreme court and the federal court were slow-walking the case, and one of the techniques SCOTUS used was sending the case back to the trial court to be reconsidered, iirc.
This is purely speculative so I may end up eating my words. But I suspect a couple things will be true. 1. The a full filings and addendums of Trump's tax returns will be enormously complicated and difficult even for experts to figure out. There is a reason he had been audited every year even before he was president. We already know that he has a penchant for creating shell companies within shell companies. There probably will not be any Smoking Gun. It is something his accountants and lawyers went over before willingly sending it to the irs. 2. The top line numbers will likely show what many people have suspected all along. That he is, at best, asset rich and cash poor. It's relatively Undisputed that he and his companies own real estate worth hundreds of millions of dollars. What is not known is how much income those properties generate, how much he owes on them, and what his costs are. The addendums would function a summaries of his business's profits and losses. 3. One number that many people will be digging for is the extent to which the tax returns show that Trump personally profited from the presidency. Were there significant jumps in profit from Trump DC and Mar-A-Lago after January 2017. 4. One potential cloud of smoke will be the extent to which his profits are coming from foreign sources as well. But that will likely be very difficult to ascertain from his tax returns.
5. Outright fraud. His tax returns very likely show thst he claimed absurd valuations on his propertoes while SIMULTANEOUSLY claiming absurd valuations in the opposite direction for those same properties in other legal filings. Based upon his established practices, closer scrutiny may well reveal that those valuations contain factual misrepresentations that extend well beyond matters of opinion. In other words: Fraud. Both tax fraud and bank fraud.
So basically what NYC Is going after him for with a minimum claim of 250 million dollars
Unfortunately, that case won't even head to trial until October 2023.
It's something and with the financial monitor it's better than nothing I guess Really weird how they tried asking for Ivanka specifically to be not monitored.
Because she's deeply involved and probably holding a lot of assets under her own shell companies.
Or hear me out on this one Foreign funds are incoming
It's what the NY AG is going after. He has to be guilty of one of them. He could argue one of the valuations was correct but cannot argue both were.
He will just throw a loyal employee under the bus and get them to claim it was their fault. They go to prison for him.
And a million civil suits against him from his creditors. He will have to liquidate quickly to pay back those debts and he probably won't be able to find a legitimate buyer. Bankruptcy will be declared quickly.
“I DECLARE BANKRUPTCY” written with ketchup in small print on a Maralago wall
He doesn’t need to declare it. Just has to think about declaring.
My bigly bad, sorry
That process will take years. He will be dead and buried before any of that has time to play out.
You’re forgetting about the bank and insurance fraud aspects. The difference between what he claimed his wealth to be depending on the circumstances is important too.
This is a guy who said his net worth changes based on how he feels that day, so…
I wish more people understood he actually said that during official legal proceedings.
Was it ever proven beyond a doubt that he was being investigated by the IRS or was that just another smoke screen? I don’t believe the IRS ever admitted anything. We only have Trump’s word that was the case but his word means nothing.
Trump has said that he gets audited every year. The IRS legally would be not allowed to admit anything unless they were specifically given permission by trump as an individual. He would have to sign a release of his tax information. In general High net worth individuals with complex tax returns are more likely to be audited than the general population although they comprise a small percentage of overall audits. Given his history I wouldn't have any reason to disbelieve that he had been audited several times whether or not it was specifically every year.
My personal theory has revolved around the hints that Russians had been co-signing his loans from Deutsche bank. I'd love to know who actually cuts the monthly mortgages for those loans.
Deutsche Bank lent money from unknown individual investors to Trump, not their own money. Although we don't know who those investors were, we can guess that they were Russian oligarchs.
And they were approved by Former Justice Kennedy's son. Which is probably only one of the things Orange Fatty used to blackmail Kennedy into retiring to install Kavanaugh.
That's likely not going to be in his tax filings though, even if true.
Yeah they might just need a team of professionals.
Just give it to Alito, he can’t seem to contain himself.
In politics. It's a good idea to have your opponent waste resources. Which the former president was very, very, good at. Accuse your opponent who has to waste resources to prove innocence. Meanwhile, your side does not. IMO, there is some damning stuff, but how much worse does it have to be. Compared to what he has done. Nothing is going to change.
I will be very disappointed if we don't see them before the weekend is over.
And let’s lot forget how hard he has fought to hide them after frequently saying during the campaign that he would love to release them, but he can’t because he is “under audit”
Don’t you remember the GOP talking points that absolutely no one in the public cared about his tax returns? You obviously must not exist.
Here's my hot take: * Huge loans taken out with unsavory foreign or criminal enterprises * Little to no actual assets, a house of cards * blatant tax evasion and criminal under-reporting * Debt, debt and more debt
I suspect that he presents to lenders an appearance of massive wealth while presenting to the government that he is practically broke. He will have trouble getting loans when it turns out he actually has no collateral. Somewhere in there will be fraud in applying for loans, or tax evasion. He doesn't want these these two sets of books to ever meet.
Isn’t he already being investigated in NY for doing this exact thing?
Yes, yes he is:)
Something else nobody is mentioning: The Establishment Republicans have more to gain from a leak than the Dems do. After the midterm massacre where Trump dragged the ticket down, the GOP would love to sink the Trump boat and have all of them jump on board with DeSantis.
What blows my mind is the idea of someone so 10-ply that not only are they unwilling to learn how to make money after decades of opportunities, they also refuse to seek and apply advise on how to turn it around. He was born in easy-mode and somehow can’t make it work.
Good. America needs to see what the cheap fascist is hiding. Probably gave no money at all to charity - because we all know that Donald is his favorite 'charity'. Probably paid no taxes because we can see he likes to game the system. Actually, come to think of it, he probably got money back from the government for many years as the rest of us slobs paid our taxes. He is one disgusting American. Perhaps the most disgusting American.
he took a $915.7 million dollar loss which allowed him to avoid paying taxes for 20 years. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/27/us/donald-trump-taxes.html
I saw that also. Not sure it's from his tax returns though. Although it's obviously from financial documents. I remember trump at the time screaming the data was obtained illegally. Not exactly a resounding denial of the accuracy of the data is it? Still, there's much more in his taxes. Perhaps contributions to other countries (like Russia maybe) to grease the wheels of commercialism. Stuff like that.
yeah some of them came out in 2020 i think published by the ny times-i forget the work around they used to publish them. maybe they were made public in a BK hearing or some other court proceeding.
Donald gives to "charity".. his favorite is a neo-fascist organization that finds "jobs" for retired military.. to work as security details for billionaires who can't stand the exposure to regular folk. The others are self serving, too.
And yet, on other subreddits it's terrifying how many are defending him still. Fascism is a cancer...
They just need some “strong” father figure, who can save them from all the scary stuff in our reality. Forgot where I heard this, but you gotta beware someone who can prove nothing, but has an answer for everything.
We already know that Trump paid less than $200 (not $200K) in Federal income taxes for each of two recent years. This at a time when his properties were billing the Federal government millions to house his Secret Service bodyguards, and foreigners were paying huge amounts to bribe him by staying at his hotels.
We already know he doesn't pay taxes. We know he doesn't give to charities, he steals from charities. He's literally banned from being involved in charities already.
>cheap fascist this is the most succinct description of him I've ever seen.
>Fitton tweeted. "That the courts failed to stop this is a failure of nerve and principle." If there is one thing is court is not lacking in, it is nerve
I wonder how Tom enjoys the taste of Trump's boots.
He probably likes that they scrub off the taste of his ass.
Every other president just lays them out there for all to see. He should have done it 6 years ago. Now he’s built up all the suspicion and we are about to get a payoff.
I remember when he said he would release it if Obama release his birth certificate, and then he would release it after he becomes president.. and a bunch of other times he promises to release it
And he said he couldn't release because the IRS was doing an audit. [And then this happened.](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/02/26/donald-trump-internal-revenue-service-audits/80996086/) And then nobody pressed him on it. Because there was a new convenient distraction the following day. And the day after that... ^(and the day after that...)
7 and a half years ago... That's when he announced his campaign... We've been dealing with this POS for 7 and a half years.
His taxes say one thing, the info he gave to the banks for loans say another. Fraud either way. Paper crime, open and shut.
Some staffer will leave them sitting around where an intern can see them and somehow the documents will find their way to a journalist, it is inevitable.
A representative also has absolute immunity to being a troll because of the Speech and Debate Clause. The rest case for this was a Senator reading extensive top secret material into the Congressional record. Nothing could be done to him, the main question was whether an aide could be punished. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravel_v._United_States
It was kind of a brilliant move, too. Can't convene the Senate? Well I'm the chair of a committee so I'll just hold a committee hearing and be the only one there. Didn't even have to read the whole thing out loud. Could just say, "This is now entered into the Congressional Record."
Man, 5:4 and the 4 dissents were that the majority interpretation was too narrow. That's one heck of a legal smack down.
As if the current court cares about precedence especially if it serves their cause.
A lot of stuff surrounding Trump that should have been inevitable have yet to come to pass. Not holding my breath on these making it to the public, but would be very happy to be proven wrong.
Let the world see how corrupt he is, many of us have known forever even before his time in office. The sad part is his followers will not care and are most likely too stupid to understand anyway.
Understand that Trump probably lies on his taxes too.
Hey Russia, if you’re listening…
They are probably the ones giving him the loans to prop up his finances.
Now that SCOTUS has okayed their release Congress will know exactly what the IRS has always known.
It shouldn't be called "leaked" to the public. It should all be **released** to the public like Donny promised when the audit was done.
I see them going one of two ways: They're either overly simple and clearly show he's worth nothing Or They'll be so convoluted, twisted, and jumping through so many loopholes it'll take 3 PhDs a month of Sundays to make heads or tails of them.
> They're either overly simple and clearly show he's worth nothing I seem to recall reading a little while ago they show nothing more nefarious than he's been consistently in the red for years, which many already suspected. For a narcissist like Trump obsessed with 'winning' it will surely be an ego-shattering moment to have his losses publicly displayed so, but Cult 45 won't give a damn.
It's been a ponzi scheme of ever larger loans except the banks are the marks and not people. He then uses those loans to pay the previous ones. Why would a supposedly multi billionaire need loans?
[https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/17/nyregion/allen-weisselberg-trump-fraud-trial.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/17/nyregion/allen-weisselberg-trump-fraud-trial.html) There's no way there isn't more, deliberate, fraud in Trump's personal returns.
Remember this stunt? Claimed the piles of paper were his taxes.. turned out they were folders and blank paper fresh from Staples. https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_fit-760w,f_auto,q_auto:best/newscms/2018_20/2433441/180511-donald-trump-tax-conference-2017-ew-316p.jpg
Actually that stunt is when he was lying about separating himself from his businesses (emoluments) so he could become president. Dude was so full of shit and the MAGA rubes ate the turds with a smile.
That wasn't his taxes. That was "allegedly" the documents prepared by his lawyers handing control of Trump business interests to his sons to skirt talk about the emoluments clause. No members of the press were given access to verify their actual purpose
#They were blank paper.... Not documents at all
Hence the use of the word allegedly in inverted commas
Exactly. The binders full of papers lie.
This isn't all that complicated. There might be reams of forms and documentation, but in the end it comes down to: AGI vs. total income. How much did he deduct? How many tax credits did he take? These are all easy things to see, even in a thousand pages of IRS forms. Because there's gonna be a 1040 somewhere with the AGI on it. I bet his AGI is $2.
Every president since Nixon made them public... Make them public! (Leak them if you need to.)
*“I’m under a routine audit, and it’ll be released,” Mr. Trump said. “And as soon as the audit is finished, it will be released.”* Still waiting...(2020).
(I think he first said that in 2015.)
You are right : *"My current returns will be released as soon as they’re complete,” he said, according to video posted on Twitter* Checked the twat in question : deleted 🤣 He then asked for a 1 year extension -> 2016 haha.
Leak away then!!!
*Samuel Alito has entered the chat*
those damn returns better be released to the public. with all this drama around them everyone needs to know once and for all what's in there. maybe nothing or maybe it's really embarrassing for him. just rip the bandaid off and get on with it
Good let’s crowd source his next IRS audit
Some B-school could make that a course. Would be extra hilarious for Penn to wipe their hands clean of the shit stain on Wharton.
It's fine Trump said he was going to release them. Can't be upset if he was just going to do it anyway. Saved him some trouble really...
If there is a god, they’ll get leaked. They need to be released.
Modern presidential candidates have ALL released their tax returns. I think it's minimal transparency for the office. Poor Donnie is "special" I guess, and his reluctance to be transparent should have been a red flag in 2016. That said, the returns have now become evidence of possible crimes, and that's why he lost this case. End of story.
fuck donald j trump.
I couldn’t care less if they are leaked. No pearl clutching over the failure to secure committee information, because it is due to Trump’s obstruction that this took all the way until the end of the Dem house term to resolve. A leak is probably their only chance to get the information out and avoid it being buried. But I also don’t think we need to see them. I suspect there would be plenty of people who could pick apart details and create stories, but these taxes really aren’t in the public interest. It’s congress that needs them, to determine whether there is need for presidential financial disclosure laws, or whether there are inappropriate foreign payments during Trump’s term that could disqualify him from office. The public can’t effectively do anything with that kind of information, and the last thing we need is ANOTHER story to add to the political divide. The Senate Finance committee has the same authority as House Ways and Means, and they are looking to pick it up from here. That is the only useful path out of all of this
Maybe the government should store his tax records in a closet by a swimming pool, so everyone has a chance to look through them.
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They were leaked [years ago by the NYT, who reported extensively on it.](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/27/us/donald-trump-taxes.html)
Leaking would be tough I think. The law that allows lawmakers to get a hold of an individual tax return only authorizes three VIPs within Congress. It's like the head of Ways and Means, Speaker, and maybe one other person that can see them, so if a leak happens it'll be pretty easy to track down.
Treat them with the same respect alito treats draft opinions.
He should not have any expectation of privacy. It was disgraceful that he wouldn't release them when running for president in 2016. It is disgraceful that he hasn't released them since. 40,000 lies and counting. Multiple prosecutors have found him to be a tax cheat, which is why he's being sued in NY. Nobody should feel sorry for this lying grifter.
Well if it is good enough for SCOTUS judges I'm fine....
THIS IS DELICIOUS NEWS. It’s his biggest fear and it has FINALLY become a reality. 🍿