Red Herring
By Mitch Berg
It’s depressing that anybody would fall for such an obvious diversion. Trump was a rich man during the entire Obama administration, whose IRS was famous for auditing people Democrats didn’t like. The holdover liberals who make up the Deep State have no problem leaking damaging information. If Trump had any possible secrets in his tax returns, they would have been leaked and investigated long ago.
Democrats know that, they know there’s nothing to find, they don’t care. They simply want Trump to deny the demand so they can complain that he’s obstructing justice, which diverts attention away from the Attorney General’s investigation into Hillary colluding with the Russians to influence the 2016 Presidential election.
But you know Minneapolis liberals will swallow it, hook line & sinker. Depressing
Joe Doakes
They’re holding on to the idea that there’s “something” out there like an eight-year-old holding onto Santa.
May 8th, 2019 at 6:23 am
How true is the old aphorism that empty vessels sound loudest. Time and again we see this — especially in a place like the US, where ego is apt to be equated with ‘self-confidence’ and, perhaps worse still, competence.
May 8th, 2019 at 7:00 am
Is obstructing justice and obstructing injustice the same thing?
May 8th, 2019 at 9:03 am
To Trump haters, yes.
May 8th, 2019 at 9:08 am
Lol, emery just described himself, and he doesn’t even realize it.
Is that a Freudian slip or a Kinsley gaffe, or both?
May 8th, 2019 at 10:06 am
Whatever the legality, the average American has a hard time understanding how billionaires end up paying zero taxes for a decade.
May 8th, 2019 at 10:20 am
Speaking of driving formerly thriving enterprises into ruinous debt for no evident rational reason.
U.S. Budget Deficit Widens to $691 Billion in First Half of 2019
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-10/u-s-budget-deficit-widens-to-691-billion-in-first-half-of-2019
May 8th, 2019 at 10:43 am
“how billionaires end up paying zero taxes for a decade.”
you’re referring to Steyer, Ellison, Bezos, Zuckerberg, et al?
May 8th, 2019 at 11:45 am
Yeah thats why we should throw our tax law in the trash and go to a flat/fair tax of 15% or ideally 10% across the board. God only asks for 10%, and therefore so should government since a good chunk of the public view it as a god.
May 8th, 2019 at 11:46 am
Mac, you forgot Soros
May 8th, 2019 at 11:46 am
Trump’s tax returns are pretty much the same as the Mueller report.
Not a criminal mastermind. Just a lying fraud.
May 8th, 2019 at 12:03 pm
Whatever the legality, the average American has a hard time understanding how billionaires end up paying zero taxes for a decade.
What’s very interesting to me is to see the New York Times willfully participating in multiple felonies by releasing details of tax returns without authorization. A mole in the IRS or DOJ, or perhaps Michael Cohen? Would be very, very interesting to know, don’t you think?
And sure, most people don’t understand why some billionaires don’t pay much income tax. Hint; it’s about the difference between income and wealth, between earned income and capital gains. From your local plumbing contractor to Bill Gates, smart people work hard to gain wealth taxed at capital gains rates instead of standard income tax rates. The fact that public school graduates and the media have trouble figuring this out doesn’t make it nefarious.
May 8th, 2019 at 12:48 pm
Years ago, during the rein of the Bush dynasty, William Gates Sr, Bill Gate’s father, waged a high profile campaign against tax cuts and for higher estate taxes.
Now, why would a tax attorney do that?
Why? Why? Why?
May 8th, 2019 at 1:23 pm
BB: This is obviously ‘fake news’ since it came from the ‘failing New York Times.’ All Trump has to do is release his actual tax returns and everything will be cleared up instantly.
Greg: Borrow other people’s money and then use their losses to save on your taxes. All the while ensuring a decent amount is creamed off in fees for yourself.
Basically there are those who really understand finance and those who work for them.
Self promotion is a special skill. Helps with politics too apparently…
May 8th, 2019 at 1:45 pm
Its so nice to have a regular left of center commentor that actually engages in debate on this blog. That wasnt sarcasm Emery, we may butt heads and trade insults but in today’s divided world its just so refreshing.
May 8th, 2019 at 2:23 pm
Emery perfectly summarizes the Democrats fiscal policy in a nutshell:
“Borrow other people’s money and then use their losses to save on your taxes. All the while ensuring a decent amount is creamed off in fees for yourself.”
good going emery!
May 8th, 2019 at 3:41 pm
I do not know why wages are taxed. By definition it is money earned by labor by people to feed to house & feed themselves. You have to be out of your ever loving mind to say “look at that guy making $15/hr! We need a chunk of that sweet cash more than he does!
Real estate taxes are a wealth tax, aren’t they? Are they unfair?
May 8th, 2019 at 3:54 pm
Trump promised to close the loopholes that he’s being accused of abusing, as well as the “carried interest loophole”. And it continues to be swampy at the top.
May 8th, 2019 at 4:40 pm
Yet, back in 1995, this same New York Times, reported this same story, but was essentially praising Trump as a brilliant business man, who used the big bank’s money and managed his losses so well, that those banks could not foreclose on him, lest they go down, too. They further praised his ability to rescue his company and thrive.
But the lefties, including the Slimes, forget about that.
May 8th, 2019 at 4:43 pm
Ha! I forgot to add; back then, he was a Democrat!
May 8th, 2019 at 5:08 pm
Emery: so when the NY Times enables multiple felonies, Donald Trump loses his right to privacy? Did I get that right? And precisely what is immoral about using business losses to offset income so you don’t pay income tax? Are you saying that people ought to be idiots in how they file? That because they don’t like a particular provision in the tax code, they ought to disadvantage themselves and not take advantage of it?
And are we going to hold Democrats to this standard, too? To be blunt about the matter, I haven’t heard of rich liberals donating extra money to the government very often. Why is it required when the person is now a Republican (but was a Democrat at the time)?
May 8th, 2019 at 6:50 pm
“Trump promised to close the loopholes that he’s being accused of abusing.”
So he’s accused of abusing them, but he has not been shown to have abused them?
Which “loopholes” are you talking about, specifically?
And why is it wrong to promise to forbid some behavior you may guilty of having done?
You are just repeating talking points, Emery. There is really no considered thought behind your words.
May 8th, 2019 at 10:28 pm
Trump has never made a secret of the fact that he took advantage of tax laws whenever possible. While campaigning, Trump often argued that because he knew how to use the tax code, he was in a good position to reform it. He knew which loopholes to close. Trump hasn’t pushed through any reforms. Real estate still gets special treatment in the tax code. He’s done nothing to close any of the loopholes.
May 9th, 2019 at 7:37 am
You can’t abuse loopholes, you can make maximum use of them if you are smart, or hire smart people to do it for you.
Stinking leftists are just bent because Trump has lost more cash than they will ever see, and still has more than they can imagine.
They know there is no smoking gun in his returns, if there was, the IRS would have found them years ago. They just want to have them so they can drag them around like the petty little bugs they are.
I swear, if I ever hit the lottery, I’d take helicopter rides over leftist controlled cities and piss out the window.
May 9th, 2019 at 7:58 am
My secretary deposited a check that we received on December 30th instead of holding it until January 2nd. I didn’t know about it in time to run out and buy something deductible. Accidentally put us over – I made a profit that year. My accountant was pissed!
Because that’s how the game is played. Nobody makes a profit running a business, not if they can help it; you’d be a fool to give that money to the government.
General Electric pays no tax on billions of dollars of income. Apple hides its money overseas. They take deductions from income that were intentionally included in the tax code – completely fair and totally legal.
The claim that a deduction is a loophole stems from the notion that government is entitled to everything you earn, so keeping any of it back is stealing from society. That’s straight-up communism. No surprise hearing it from Democrats.
May 9th, 2019 at 10:03 am
Trump’s cumulative declared business losses based on tax filings
1990 -$400m
1991 -$664m
1992 -$751m
1993 -$814m
1994 -$919m
1995 -$916m
This is the reason he didn’t want to release his tax returns — he’s a business schmuck not a genius.
May 9th, 2019 at 11:55 am
This seems germane to the discussion:
https://babylonbee.com/news/nations-politicians-mock-trump-for-only-wasting-a-mere-billion-dollars
Speaking of wasting a billion dollars, remember when the New York Slimes lost a billion on the Boston Globe?
https://nypost.com/2013/08/03/new-york-times-sells-boston-globe-for-93-percent-loss/
I guess regarding Emery’s “schmucks” comment, it takes one to know one. Reality is, however, that Trump did some great things, business-wise, from 1968 through about 1988, so to concentrate on one phase of his career is really to be engaged in quite a bit of cherry picking.
Also worth noting is that Emery cuts and pastes cumulative losses instead of annual losses in an effort to make things look worse. Nice try, schmuck.
May 9th, 2019 at 3:00 pm
Right, Dunning_Kruger…He “lost” all that money, but he still flies a personal jet, then catches his personal helicopter to play golf with Tiger Woods at his personal golf resort.
And there you are, driving your shitty little Toyota to your crap job to pay off the mortgage on your shitty little cardboard cutout house. Really pisses you off, don’t it?
May 9th, 2019 at 7:22 pm
A philanderer awarding a philanderer — who woulda thought?