A Tale of Trump’s Taxes

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Today in Trump News, the NY Times somehow got its hands on a copy of part of Trump’s tax returns from 1995 that show some, um, losses.

Donald J. Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years, records obtained by The New York Times show.

The 1995 tax records, never before disclosed, reveal the extraordinary tax benefits that Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, derived from the financial wreckage he left behind in the early 1990s through mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos, his ill-fated foray into the airline business and his ill-timed purchase of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.

Tax experts hired by The Times to analyze Mr. Trump’s 1995 records said that tax rules especially advantageous to wealthy filers would have allowed Mr. Trump to use his $916 million loss to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income over an 18-year period.

Most people, I suspect, would consider losing nearly a billion dollars in one year an indication that one is something of a screw-up. But not Trump and the Trumpettes.

Trump and his surrogates, meanwhile, tried Sunday to turn the story into an asset, saying that reports he avoided paying taxes for years prove his business acumen and deep knowledge of the tax system.

“He’s a genius at how to take advantage of legal remedies that can help your company survive and grow,” former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said on ABC’s This Week.  “I want a man who’s a genius at figuring out how to take this country, that’s moving in the wrong direction.”

Christie told Fox News Sunday that it was a “very, very good story” for Trump, and noted that “he’s already promised in his tax plan to change many of these special interest loopholes and get rid of them, so you don’t have this kind of situation.”

Yes, losing a billion dollars is genius. What else can one say? Meanwhile, the Washington Post has a story up about Trump having another public meltdown yesterday after this news broke. A couple of highlights:

He told the crowd to get a group of friends together on Election Day, vote and then go to “certain areas” and “watch” the voters there. “I hear too many bad stories, and we can’t lose an election because of you know what I’m talking about,” Trump said. “So, go and vote and then go check out areas because a lot of bad things happen, and we don’t want to lose for that reason.” …

… “Hillary Clinton’s only loyalty is to her financial contributors and to herself,” Trump said. “I don’t even think she’s loyal to Bill, if you want to know the truth.”

The crowd gasped and many shouted: “Ohhhhh!”

Trump shrugged.

“And really, folks,” Trump continued, “really, why should she be? Right? Why should she be?”

Back to the Times — publishing a tax return without authorization to do so is against the law, and the Times may end up paying a penalty for it. But I’m sure the Times editors knew this and decided the benefits outweighed the costs. That was gutsy of them. Credit where credit is due.

6 thoughts on “A Tale of Trump’s Taxes”

  1. The few right wing magazines I have paged through always seemed to have ads for books or seminars on how tax laws are wrong and you don’t have to pay taxes.  The articles always seemed to imply that they should run the county though.  All the power and none of the responsibility seems their rule.  You get the worn out rhetoric, failed policies, and more.  This year you get twice the worn out rhetoric and failed policies, and they will throw in at no extra charge free bigotry, misogyny, and xenophobia.  What a deal.  How do they get anyone to vote for them?

  2. t-RUMP lost almost a billion dollars during a year in the middle of a period when the economy was booming!

    Is he a great businessman?
    HELL NO!
    What he is, is a great con/flim-flam man!

    And about 50% of Americans are rubes, suckers, dupes, nit/half/dim’fuck-wits!

  3. Trump may not gain any undecided voters, but this news won’t sway his supporters:

    “It never crossed my mind that I’m losing it,’ she said several months after her release, and a big reason for this conviction was the rise of Donald Trump, who had talked about so many of the things she had come to believe — from Obama being a founder of the terrorist group ISIS, to Hillary Clinton being a co-founder, to the idea that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia may have been murdered in a White House plot involving a prostitute and a pillow.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/finally-someone-who-thinks-like-me/2016/10/01/c9b6f334-7f68-11e6-9070-5c4905bf40dc_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_believer633pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

    As long as Trump mainstreams some of the craziest, irresponsible theories these people believe, it wouldn’t matter what he does or says. They’re sold.

  4. I agree, csm. The Trump supporters minds are shut tight as a crab’s ass, and psychosis reigns supreme in Trumpville. If reason hasn’t penetrated their thinking process up to this point in spite of everything that’s been demonstrated on how flawed a character Trump possesses and how absolutely unfit for the office of the presidency he is, than nothing is going to move them out of Trump’s camp. The only consolation I can find in that bit of knowledge is the fact that their numbers aren’t sufficient to win the White House. Hillary will be our next President.

  5. There is a trend, only a month out, where Trump is being painted by the MSM as unsuited for the office of POTUS. It’s seems they waited until the last minute to vette Trump in terms of background, his prior business associations, the political associates he’s chosen for his campaign and his temperament. Particularly his temperament – because if a former Miss Universe and Senator Warren can play Trump like a fish, so can world leaders.

    I think that Trump supporters are like the boxing fans who, over and over, placed their confidence and hope in any white fighter who would go up against Muhammad Ali. It wasn’t that they believed in those boxers, but they hated the idea of a black fighter holding the title. Decades of indoctrination have rendered many republicans incapable of considering the issues, but conditioned them like Pablov’s puppies to salivate against all things liberal.

    There is a portion of the electorate that is ‘persuadable’ – and many of them will perceive Trump as a looser. There are states like Utah and Georgia within 5 percentage points of shifting to Clinton. Clinton will win – I want a landslide. There’s go to be a major reorganization of the GOP in 2017 – and ZI want the Trumpian faction to be discounted by the New GOP – and I want them to try to make up the loss with a more moderate platform overall. If the loss in 2016 is huge and the party doesn’t adjust, they could be facing extinction and we could see the emergence of a conservative-moderate party to replace a radicalized ‘Trumpian’ party.

    The ‘kicker’ is that once elected, Clinton WILL set the future of the Supreme Court for as long as the next two decades depending on the age of her appointments – plural – because in addition to the Scalia vacancy, there are potentially three more appointments in the near future, two of them conservatives. Voter suppression will be struck down – Citizen United will be reversed – State-level attacks on access to abortion will be prohibited. The GOP can embrace or oppose the future – and if they oppose, they risk extinction.

    I’m under 100 hours – and counting.

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