A cool $750
Uh oh, it seems that billionaire Don hasn’t been paying a huge amount of income tax. You’d think the tariff on the income from all those billions would be quite a high figure, but…
Donald Trump, a self-proclaimed billionaire, paid only $750 in federal income taxes in the year he was elected US president, according to a stunning New York Times investigation that could shake up the presidential election.
My goodness. That’s a very small figure.
The president “paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency”, the paper reported, adding that “in his first year in the White House, he paid another $750.
“He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years – largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.”
In all, the paper said, Trump paid no federal income taxes in 11 of 18 years its reporters examined. Many of his businesses, including his golf courses, report significant financial losses – which have helped him to lower his taxes.
He babbled at a “press briefing” today.
“Totally fake news, no. Actually I paid tax. And you’ll see that as soon as my tax returns – it’s under audit, they’ve been under audit for a long time. The [Internal Revenue Service] does not treat me well … they treat me very badly. You have people in the IRS – they treat me very badly.”
You’ll see that as soon as you see his tax returns, which will be never. It’s like that health care bill that we’re always going to see “in two weeks,” which is the same as jam tomorrow.
Pressed on why a billionaire only paid a few hundred dollars in the year he won the presidency, Trump insisted: “First of all I paid a lot, and I paid a lot of state income taxes too. The New York state charges a lot and I paid a lot of money in state. It’ll all be revealed. It’s going to come out but after the audit.”
In two weeks. You can see the taxes in two weeks, and two weeks ago, but never taxes today.
“Even while declaring losses, he has managed to enjoy a lavish lifestyle by taking tax deductions on what most people would consider personal expenses, including residences, aircraft and $70,000 in hairstyling for television,” the Times reported on Sunday.
Why did the IRS allow it?
“Ivanka Trump, while working as an employee of the Trump Organization, appears to have received ‘consulting fees’ that also helped reduce the family’s tax bill.”
Who the fuck would ever want to “consult” Princess Ivanka about anything? Consult the nearest Barbie doll instead; at least it’s cheap.
The paper added: “Over the past two decades, Mr Trump has paid about $400m less in combined federal income taxes than a very wealthy person who paid the average for that group each year.”
Making America great again.
What MAGA really means: a couple of hard hats and some steel tip shoes for some construction workers. If Trump dies, he should have this played at his funeral:
“I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love”
Da da da dat da dat da da da da ya da. Da da dat dat da ya …
“I paid state income taxes” has nothing to do with whether you paid federal income taxes. Who do you think you’re fooling?
“You’ll see ….” Then F*ing show us so we can see!!
Liar. And cheat. And liar.
I paid more than $750 a year in taxes when I made a gross adjusted income of $4000 a year; this was because of esoterica in the self-employed category that can leave you owing taxes even if you make lower than starvation wages. I knew there were billionaires that worked the system to pay less in taxes than I did; it made me angry then, and it makes me angry now when I make a comfortable living. Not because I don’t feel like I should pay my taxes, but because I feel they should. They certainly benefit from all the government services.
“that could shake up the presidential election.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Oh, my sweet summer child, NY Times person. Maybe — maybe — if you ran six front page stories a day about this, the way you did about Hilary’s EEEMAILLLS, it might make a difference.
Maybe. That’s putting aside the issue that Trump’s supporters don’t care. They view his tax fraud as just further proof of, as Trump says, “how smart I am.” (And here’s where the socialist Left has a point — you let fuckers like Trump get away with this shit for too long, you pay a price. Either decades of Republican and Democratic administrations were too incompetent to catch Trump, or the system is set up to let guys like him cheat.)
But you won’t even do that. In two days, you’ll be back to “Trump claims Biden is senile and addicted to performance-enhancing drugs. Biden denies it. This controversy could shake up the election!”
Billionaires can hire lawyers and accountants to ensure they pay no tax, and Homer and Marge Simpson finally hire themselves a cut-price operator who will sell them a similar, but no-frills deal. So the US Gini coefficient (Denmark, Sweden ~ 25, US ~ 47) heads ever higher, until eventually NASA has to take charge of it.
Meanwhile, with public squalor going off the charts, all the gold plate piling up on Trump Tower causes its foundations to sink. Trump, like King Kong before him has to move higher and ever higher, until finally even he is up on the top of the top flagpole.
Then a light goes on inside Homer’s head, and also inside Marge’s, and they follow the easy-to-read instructions in an article Marge finds in their local paper, of title: How to convert your campervan into a tumbril. And so it comes to pass that they join the thousands of illuminated others in a mobile traffic jam heading for Mar-A-Lago.
The rest is an update of Gone With the Wind.. But not for family-time on TV.
One problem is that the Trumpistas (the touted common man, though there are many among the so-called common man that are in fact quite liberal) can see themselves in this role someday, and want to ensure that politicians preserve the sweet deals. They see Trump as sticking it to the libs when he avoids taxes; because no one ever taught them how to do math properly (or they chose not to learn; I do not wish to denigrate our math teachers), they don’t realize this means they have to pay higher taxes to make up for all the corporate cheats. Not to mention all the churches that pay no taxes, and all the corporations that get back more than they pay in their tax refund.
It’s the seventy grand on hairstyling that boggles my mind. Dolly Parton once said of herself that it ‘takes a lot of money to look this cheap’, but Trump is no Dolly Parton. Sorry Parting, perhaps.
The only way that strange beast atop his head could cost that much would be if he had it powdered with gold dust every day, but Trump only does fake gold so it can’t be that. He couldn’t be lying to bump up his tax write-offs, could he?
Indeed. There’s a lot of kitsch around Dolly Parton, but there’s also a solid core of a talented songwriter and singer and a smart businesswoman. Also, she’s been married to the same man for over half a century, she takes COVID-19 seriously, and while she didn’t inherit any money from her father, she credits him with her business sense.
Also, her nonprofit Imagination Library is actually a legitimate nonprofit.
Also she sang with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris.
That too.
iknklast @#6:
That may well be true, except if it was, Trump instead of being coy about his tax (non-paying) record, surely would have trumpeted it to the skies: “vote for me, I’m cleverer than ‘Crooked Hillary’, and if you do vote for me, I’ll make it possible for you, too, to pay damn near nothing, just like your hero, me.”
No. Instead, he has been strangely silent, and it is turning into another Watergate.
Nixon shut up about that, too. Getting the truth out of the mouth of Tricky Dick required the services of a horse dentist: even though he was a faithful Quaker and all.
Omar:
Actually, IIRC he did almost exactly that in one of their debates. I think it was the one where he lurked behind her while she was speaking. She mentioned the two years of Trump’s tax returns that he’d disclosed (a condition to applying for a casino license, I think) which revealed that he’d paid no tax in those years. Trump interjected, saying “that’s because I’m smart.”
Omar, I suspect Trump is more concerned about federal investigators than his base.
iknklast @#13:
I heartily agree. Trump will use the poor fools dressed up in all the Trump-support regalia, until he has no further use for them. Then they will find themselves looking up at the world from the bottom of the Trump garbage bin.
Stand by if he wins for him to move on the FBI, CIA, IRS (investigation branch only: some suckers have to pay taxes, just that it should not be him.)