Thread: Trump Tax Records Reveal He Could Have Avoided Paying Taxes for 2 Decades

Report claims Trump declared $916M loss on 1995 income tax returns
Published October 02, 2016 FoxNews.com

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump declared a loss of nearly $916 million on his 1995 income tax returns, The New York Times reported Saturday, citing leaked copies of his tax records.

The paper reported that Trump's claimed losses were so large that they would have allowed him to avoid paying an equivalent amount of federal income tax over an 18-year period.

The newly reported documents are certain to become an issue in the presidential race. Trump's Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, has repeatedly called on him to release his returns. Trump has declined to do so because, of an IRS audit.

The Times reported that the documents were mailed to one of its reporters last month. The return address indicated that they had been sent from Trump Tower in New York City. The paper said it had confirmed the returns' accuracy with Trump's then-accountant.

"This is legit," Jack Mitnick, whose name appears as Trump's tax preparer of the filings, told the newspaper.

The Trump campaign issued a statement late Saturday saying the documents had been "illegally obtained" and called The Times "an extension of the Clinton Campaign, the Democratic Party and their global special interests."
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"Mr. Trump is a highly-skilled businessman who has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required," the statement went on. "That being said, Mr. Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes, along with very substantial charitable contributions."

The statement also claimed that Trump "knows the tax code far better than anyone who has ever run for President and he is the only one that knows how to fix it."

Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said the Times report "reveals the colossal nature of Donald Trump's past business failures and just how long he may have avoided paying any federal income taxes whatsoever.

"He stiffed small businesses, laid off workers, and walked away from hardworking communities. And how did it work out for him? He apparently got to avoid paying taxes for nearly two decades -- while tens of millions of working families paid theirs."

Clinton press secretary Brian Fallon tweeted late Saturday that the Times report was a "bombshell."

The Times report stated that tax experts have found no evidence of wrongdoing connected with Trump's 1995 tax returns, though the paper notes that the large loss claim almost certainly would have drawn the attention of the IRS.

During last week's presidential debate, Clinton speculated that Trump's returns would show that he has paid little or no federal income taxes. She cited documents obtained by Politico that showed Trump didn't pay any federal income tax during at least two years in the early 1990s because he lost more money than he earned. Other documents show he also didn't pay any federal income taxes in 1978, 1979 and 1984.

Trump responded by saying "That makes me smart," a comment he disavowed just minutes after the debate. Asked by reporters if he had admitted to not paying federal income taxes, Trump said, "I didn't say that at all."

Trump added during the debate that he would release his returns — over what he described as his attorney's objections — only after Clinton released roughly 30,000 emails she had deleted from her private server that she had deemed personal.

Since 1976, every major party presidential nominee has released tax returns. Clinton has publicly released nearly 40 years' worth, and Trump's running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, has released 10 years of his tax returns.

Because of provisions in the tax code that allow wealthy individuals to offset their personal income with losses in various partnerships and business ventures, Trump could have used his losses in 1995 to avoid incurring tax liabilities on as many as three years of prior and 15 years of future profits.

The $916 million in losses reported by the Times would not include previous years of losses incurred by Trump while his New Jersey casino empire slid into bankruptcy.

In an interview, Mitnick told the Times he had sometimes found it odd that the tax code allowed Trump to live in such luxury without paying income taxes.

"Here the guy was building incredible net worth and not paying tax on it," he said.

The Associated Press reported this week that Trump has released tax documents to gambling regulators in multiple states, as well as banks that have lent the GOP candidate money over the years. However, those who have seen the returns are barred from discussing their full contents by professional or legal restrictions.

Fox News' Chris Snyder, Mike Emanuel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016...x-returns.html

From Fox Article:

Because of provisions in the tax code that allow wealthy individuals to offset their personal income with losses in various partnerships and business ventures, Trump could have used his losses in 1995 to avoid incurring tax liabilities on as many as three years of prior and 15 years of future profits.

These provisions in the tax code are necessary to an income based tax. There's no other fair way to do it. Furthermore, it doesn't just apply to "wealthy individuals", it applies to any business of any size including farming and small businesses. It means you invested and spent more than you earned in income. Those investments and expenditures improved communities, hired people, added to the GDP, paid all the income taxes and payroll taxes for thousands of workers, contractors, vendors and banks.

People are very reluctant today to invest in the United States, our inner cities, our blighted areas, because of the risk of loss and failure. Under today's income tax code, when you pay off a bank loan, the principal payments you made are taxable. This absurdity called "phantom income" has grown business debt and discourages investment, because in order to pay off a $1,000,000 loan, you'll have to earn at least $1,400,000 to do that, before you even get to your operating expenses, the $400,000 is just the income tax on your principal you paid off. Interest payments are deductible, but principal payments are not.

Dean Baquet, Executive Editor of the New York Times:

Dean Baquet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born September 21, 1956 (age 60)
New Orleans, Louisiana

Occupation Executive Editor, The New York Times
Notable credit(s) The New York Times, Los Angeles Times

Dean P. Baquet (born September 21, 1956) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist.[1][2]

Baquet has been the Executive Editor of The New York Times since June 2, 2011, reporting directly to Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., the Chairman and Publisher.[3][4] Baquet is the first Black American to serve as Executive Editor, the highest-ranking position in the New York Times newsroom.

In 1988, Baquet won the Pulitzer Prize for leading a team of reporters which included Bill Gaines and Ann Marie Lipinski at the Chicago Tribune who exposed corruption on the Chicago City Council.

Contents

1 Early life and education
2 Career
3 Notable stories
4 Personal life
5 Awards
6 Notes

Early life and education

Baquet was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of well-known New Orleans restaurateur, Edward Baquet, and is a member of a prominent New Orleans Creole family.[5][6]

Baquet graduated from St. Augustine High School in 1974.[7] Baquet studied English at Columbia University from 1974 to 1978; however, he dropped out to pursue a career in journalism.[8]

Career

Baquet was a reporter for The Times-Picayune of New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1984, Baquet joined the Chicago Tribune where won the Pulitzer, before joining The New York Times in April 1990 as a Metropolitan Desk Reporter. In May 1992, Baquet became the Special Projects Editor for the Business Desk. In January 1994, Baquet held the same title; however, he operated out of the Executive Editor's office. In 2000, Baquet joined the Los Angeles Times as Managing Editor, and in 2005, Baquet became the Editor for the newspaper.[9] Baquet was fired after he publicly opposed plans to cut newsroom jobs.[10]

In 2007, Baquet rejoined The New York Times, where he held positions as the Washington Bureau Chief, National Editor, Assistant Managing Editor, and the Managing Editor.[11] Baquet was appointed to the Managing Editor position in September 2011,[12] and promoted to Executive Editor on May 14, 2014.[13]

Baquet is a member of the Board of Directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Notable stories

Baquet was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting in March 1988, after he led a team of three Chicago Tribune reporters documenting corruption in the Chicago City Council in Illinois. Baquet was a finalist for the 1994 Pulitzer Prize in the same category. At the Los Angeles Times, Baquet edited a story published a few days before the 2003 California recall election that initiated the Gropegate controversy, raising concerns about gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger's sexual misconduct.

In 2006, ABC News reported that Baquet had killed a story about NSA wiretaps of Americans.[14] Commenting on Baquet's role in suppressing the NSA story, constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald said of Baquet "...Dean Baquet does have a really disturbing history of practicing this form of journalism that is incredibly subservient to the American national security state, and if his past record and his past actions and statements are anything to go by, I think it signals that the New York Times is going to continue to descend downward into this sort of journalism that is very neutered and far too close to the very political factions that it's supposed to exercise oversight over."[15]

In September 2013, Baquet refused to cover a massive race discrimination lawsuit against the Washington Post, telling freelance writer Evan Gahr, who broke the story, that "no news organization in America would report on every discrimination lawsuit filed in every court in every medium-sized city."[citation needed]

In January, 2015, in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo shooting , Dean Baquet called Marc Cooper, a journalism professor and blogger at the University of Southern California, "an asshole" on Facebook. Cooper had criticised the New York Times for not publishing the cartoons of Muhammad, in the context of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. [16][17]

Personal life

According to Baquet's colleagues, he prefers to be known as a Creole, as opposed to African-American. His brother, Terry, has stated, "Creole in New Orleans is Black. We're descendants of Haitians. We're Black; Creole is not a race."[18][19]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Baquet

So, this is a scandal? The NY times said in the article that nothing he did was illegal. CPA's are tax "professionals whose mission is to minimize tax liability. Is the CPA profession a scandal? You can bet the Clintons use them. IMO

Originally Posted by Newmexican

So, this is a scandal? The NY times said in the article that nothing he did was illegal. CPA's are tax "professionals whose mission is to minimize tax liability is the CPA profession a scandal? You can bet the Clintons use them. IMO

No scandal, but they will turn into one if possible. I say Mr. Trump is a smart business man and as you mention, Newmexican, his CPA and accountants serve him well. If not, he would say, " You're Fired".

Donald Trump does pay millions in taxes as one of the articles says,

"Mr. Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes.

I believe he would go through the federal government and streamline and clean out all of the waste and stupidity that lawmakers have just ignored for decades. He would get rid of the waste on ridiculous studies that make one laugh and the waste on monies given to other countries would be cut to the bone.

Some of the most beloved supporters of the liberals, globalists, progressives (G.E., Apple, etc.) use overseas tax havens and other creative means to avoid taxes here. Hypocrites.

Originally Posted by GeorgiaPeach

No scandal, but they will turn into one if possible. I say Mr. Trump is a smart business man and as you mention, Newmexican, his CPA and accountants serve him well. If not, he would say, " You're Fired".

Donald Trump does pay millions in taxes as one of the articles says,


I believe he would go through the federal government and streamline and clean out all of the waste and stupidity that lawmakers have just ignored for decades. He would get rid of the waste on ridiculous studies that make one laugh and the waste on monies given to other countries would be cut to the bone.

I agree GeorgiaPeach. Folks need to wave the BS flag every time the political operatives throw something at the wall to see if it will stick.

Trump does what every major business does as dictated by tax laws. Part of the incentive for large businesses is to write off losses for taxes WHILE STILL PAYING EVERY LOCAL, STATE, BUSINESS TAX APPLICABLE. Large business support the economy/jobs.

Big oil receives taxpayer subsidies and total tax write offs for profits AND THEY ARE ONE OF THE LARGEST PROFITEERS OF ALL INDUSTRIES.

Big oil pays ZERO!

Of the top 400 Fortune 500 companies not one has contributed to Trump, but they have to Hillary.

Report Calls Out 15 Fortune 500 Companies for Paying No Taxes


By Dan Weil |
Wednesday, 15 Apr 2015 06:20 AM


As corporate earnings season begins in earnest, the advocacy group Citizens for Tax Justice has released a report detailing 15 Fortune 500 companies that don't pay any taxes.

The list includes CBS, General Electric, Interpublic Group, JetBlue Airways, Mattel, Owens Corning, PG&E, Pepco Holdings, Priceline.com, Prudential Financial, Qualcomm, Ryder System, Time Warner, Weyerhaeuser and Xerox.

As a whole, the 15 companies paid no federal income tax on $23 billion in profits in 2014, and they paid almost no federal income tax on $107 billion in profits during the past five years. All but two received federal tax rebates in 2014, and almost all paid exceedingly low rates over five years.


For example, CBS had $1.8 billion in U.S. profits last year, and received a federal income tax rebate of $235 million, while Mattel, which has paid zero federal income taxes for the past five years, received a tax rebate of $46 million in 2014.

"The scope of corporate tax avoidance spans a wide variety of economic sectors. Moreover, the tax breaks that have allowed these companies to be so successful in their tax avoidance are, by and large, perfectly legal, and often have been on the books for decades," the report states.

So what's the solution?

"A sensible starting point should be to critically assess the costs of each of these tax breaks and to take steps to ensure that profitable corporations pay their fair share of U.S. taxes," the study says.

"The next step is just as important. The revenues raised from eliminating corporate tax subsidies should not be given right back to corporations in the form of tax-rate reductions, as corporate lobbyists and their allies inside the Washington Beltway preposterously argue."

So where should this money go? "As the vast majority of Americans understand, these desperately needed revenues should be used to address our nation's fiscal problems and to make critically needed public investments in our nation's future," the report argues.

As for GE, its decision to dump most of its GE Capital unit will cost it some juicy tax breaks. "GE has long used the financial operations of GE Capital to hold down its overall tax rate, a strategy that has allowed the conglomerate to pay taxes at a lower rate than its peers," writes Wall Street Journal reporter Ted Mann.

"The impact has been significant enough that GE discusses it in its securities filings and was deterred for a long time from seriously considering a spinoff."

But now GE reports that its effective tax rate could double to 20 percent or more going forward, putting the company in line with its competitors.

Interestingly enough, analysts aren't quite sure how GE keeps its taxes so low in the first place. "It's a bit of a black box," said Deane Dray, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, tells Mann.

http://www.newsmax.com/Finance/Stree.../14/id/638367/

The Times reported that the documents were mailed to one of its reporters last month. The return address indicated that they had been sent from Trump Tower in New York City. The paper said it had confirmed the returns' accuracy with Trump's then-accountant.

"This is legit," Jack Mitnick, whose name appears as Trump's tax preparer of the filings, told the newspaper.

1. No accountant or tax preparor can discuss someone's tax returns with anyone without the permission of the taxpayer without violating their own standard of ethics and probably state and federal law.

2. These documents contained their social security numbers, the NYT's blacked it out, but everyone in the New York Times has access to the social security numbers on the returns. This violates the privacy act and the social security act.

3. There is nothing about these returns that looks "legit" to me.

4. It's been public knowledge in all the newspapers and on television that Trump lost almost $1 billion in 1995. He lost a lot in another year in the 1990's also and lost some more in 2004 and 2009. In business, you win some, you lose some, ask anyone. Ask Ford, GM and Chrysler. Ask Wall Street. Ask every business that lost money and all the great businesses that went completely out of business.

5. Last, but not least, this purports to be copies of 3 pages of joint personal income tax return forms, the publishing of which violate Marla Maples Trump's privacy and legally protected rights as well as Donald Trump's. Of course, she's just a woman, right New York Times? Just a second class citizen with no rights to consider or protect, right Hillary? Right Jake Tapper? Right NBC? Right Fox? Right CNN? Her rights to privacy and protected information doesn't matter does it?

So anyone who thinks their tax returns are private, their social security number is protected, their personal and business financial affairs are their own needs to wake up and realize that this isn't true. You can't trust the press, the media, the government or your accountant.

Our Founding Fathers knew this which is why the income tax was illegal and unconstitutional under the US Constitution. This shows that the demise of our nation began in 1913 when Democrats passed the United States Revenue Act of 1913 which imposed the federal income tax to offset the lowering of tariffs on imported goods from 40% to 25%, the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1913. Since then, we've accumulated a $20 Trillion national debt, have almost $800 Billion a year in trade deficits, and a waging War on Drugs that imprisons Americans for smoking pot while enriching Foreign Drug Cartels and flooding our nation with illegal aliens to run the trade for them in the United States.

This story highlights the very problems Donald Trump vows to fix. Trump vows to fix the trade deficits caused by the federal income tax code and free trade agreements. Trump vows to fix the debt problem created by the income tax. Trump vows to stop illegal immigration and foreign drug traffic into the United States.

Personally, in my opinion, his job would be much easier if he used his influence as President to help Republicans in Congress pass the FairTax and repeal the income tax, replacing it with the national retail sales tax on new goods and services purchased at the consumer level.

FairTax Act of 2015: HR 25 in the US House of Representatives and S 155 in the US Senate.

The New York Times Paid No Taxes In 2014

Joel Pollack October 2, 2016


The New York Times has excited the Clinton campaign and the rest of the media with a revelation that Republican nominee Donald Trump declared a $916 million dollar loss in 1995 that might have resulted in him not paying taxes in some subsequent years.


The implication, reinforced by CNN’s Jake Tapper on State of the Union on Sunday morning, is that Trump “avoided” paying taxes, when in fact his tax liability was zero.


But the Times itself has “avoided” paying taxes — in 2014, for example.


As Forbes noted at the time:


...for tax year 2014, The New York Times paid no taxes and got an income tax refund of $3.5 million even though they had a pre-tax profit of $29.9 million in 2014. In other words, their post-tax profit was higher than their pre-tax profit. The explanation in their 2014 annual report is, “The effective tax rate for 2014 was favorably affected by approximately $21.1 million for the reversal of reserves for uncertain tax positions due to the lapse of applicable statutes of limitations.” If you don’t think it took fancy accountants and tax lawyers to make that happen, read the statement again.


New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani defended Trump on Sunday, telling NBC News’ Meet the Press that Trump was a “genius” in business who was simply doing what the tax code allows every American to do by counting losses against tax liabilities, and bouncing back from failure to success.


That would include the New York Times — which, however, is still struggling.


As Jazz Shaw of HotAir.com notes, the Times — or whoever was its source — likely obtained Trump’s tax document illegally.

The ongoing IRS scandal, in which the federal government targeted conservative organizations, involved several cases in which the agency illegally shared taxpayer information with other branches of government, and in one case leaked taxpayer information to a conservative organization’s political opponents.


In 2008, the confidential tax information of Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher, who emerged as a critic of then-Sen. Barack Obama, was leaked illegally by an Ohio state official.




http://www.breitbart.com/big-journal...no-taxes-2014/