Everybody who pays one penny more in taxes than they are legally required to raise your hand.
About the second link, the NY Times has accessed thousands of employees of the Trump companies tax returns, as well. The excerpt of the Times article I read said so. That is very illegal and I hope somebody goes to jail.
“you know damned good and well that the IRS has sent their most fearsome auditor against him. This man sold his soul to the devil, and then fined the devil for failing to list that soul as a depreciable asset.”
ROFL
Tim, dang it!! You beat me to it!! I was looking forward anxiously to this post precisely so that I could paste that very quote. 🙂 An absolute classic.
So, all of a sudden, Hollywood and pro sports teams are bad because they show losses year after year?
No, of course not, because reasons.
There seems to be some public and journalist confusion over what the word ‘paid’ means. If I pay $100,000 to the IRS in a year in which I owe nothing, and have a resulting prepayment balance, then on a cash flow basis I have paid $100K. But it terms of effect on my net worth, I have paid nothing, because the $100K payment is offset by the $100K prepayment asset which has been created.
On FB today, I see people…known anti-Trumpers but also some who have been wavering…upset about 2 things:
–Trump’s tax rate will probably be much lower, after all the puts and takes are factored in, than that of most people (especially them!)
–Given the scale of the losses, maybe Trump isn’t the great businessman he has promoted himself as being.
Haven’t seen many people, thus far, concerned about the massive abuse of governmental authority perpetrated by the IRS people who leaked these returns.
My older brother, 86 years old is still a practicing tax accountant with his own firm that has a few clients, families that have been with the firm over 60 years who make and lose a lot of money in the oil and gas business mostly in Texas and Oklahoma. He and I were discussing the Trump tax situation and my brother told me that with all of Trump’s properties in so many different locations it would take a small team of accountants a few years to run a complete audit and Trump’s accountants and the IRS know how complicated that stuff is and Trump is not about to try to cheat on his taxes. When I took a tax accounting class in grad school about 50 years ago our professor told us the first day that he was not going to teach us how to do our own taxes but he was going to teach us how to talk to tax accountants when we were in responsible situations dealing with tax problems. He also explained the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion, avoidance using every legal loophole is part of the responsibility of every citizen and evasion is what send you to prison.
Is this supposed to persuade undecided voters or gin up the frothing hatred of the true believers? Because it sure isn’t dissuading any Republicans eager to fend off year zero.
I posted this elsewhere, but the NYT hasn’t actually been anxious to pay taxes during the Trump administration. A few years back NYT published and made a big deal about FedEx not paying taxes – until the FedEx CEO and founder Fred Smith called them out…
“the New York Times paid zero federal income tax in 2017 on earnings of $111 million”
Anyone with substantial properties employs tax accountants to manage and minimize the tax liability, legally. Only a fool doesn’t. Joe and Jill Biden do, running royalty income through an S corp, which gives them substantial tax breaks perfectly legally.
David Foster: The NYT claims that their source was legally allowed to provide Trump’s tax returns. I’m not one for believing anything from the NYT without multiple independent verifications, but I at least am considering that Trump (though some channel) leaked them. It makes Hunter Biden’s various adventures fair game tomorrow night.
Not news: people that nurse at the public teat, make no income, and pay no taxes, have no idea how the tax code, written in part by Joe Biden in his 47 years of public service, works in practice.
Shocked, shocked, I am.
@John Fisher: that is a sweet, sweet conspiracy theory. Trump the troll master would totally do that sort of thing.
John Fisher…”I at least am considering that Trump (though some channel) leaked them”…I guess that’s possible as far as his own returns go, but I certainly hope he would not have leaked the tax returns of his *employees*.
The attack line I am sure that Trump will use on Biden when he is attacked on his taxes is that he is only using the tax code that Biden has voted for to legally reduce his tax liability. Then to finish it off with how Biden has sheltered and minimized his tax liability by running his speaking fees and royalties through a sub-chapter S corporation. Then commend him for saving money for his family.
Finally he should thank for NYT for proving him correct in confirming that his taxes are under audit and there is no Russian entanglements. That would disarm a lot of the attack lines I am sure Biden has prepared to unleash.
And if he wants a savage dig at Biden ask how Hunter’s tax returns are coming along. If I remember correctly Hunter couldn’t provide them to his stripper girlfriend in Biden’s grandson’s paternity support case as they were not complete.
EXTRA! EXTRA! EXCLUSIVE B*O*M*B*S*H*E*L*L ! !
New York Times, October 16, 2016 [ — that’s 20*16*, folks — ]
Donald Trump Acknowledges Not Paying Federal Income Taxes for Years
“Donald J. Trump explicitly acknowledged for the first time during Sunday’s debate that he used a $916 million loss that he reported on his 1995 income tax returns to avoid paying personal federal income taxes for years. Mr. Trump’s response — ‘Of course I do. Of course I do’ — was the fullest the wealthy developer had provided since The New York Times reported that he had declared the loss, and that the tax deduction could have been large enough to allow him to avoid federal income taxes for up to 18 years. Previously he had declined to comment on the documents, issuing a statement that neither challenged nor confirmed the $916 million loss.”
It is genuinely astonishing how many people think the problem is that people still just don’t understand how terrible Trump is. That if they can just smear and defame and impugn Trump a little more, then everyone else will come to their senses.
I must admit that when I’ve read about mass hysteria in past ages, like the Salem witch trials, it’s been hard for me to understand how large groups of people just go off the deep end like that. I don’t have that difficulty anymore.
Mike
MBunge —
When FB acquaintances go off on Trump this and Trump that, I always wonder who they’re trying to convince.
After a while it occurred to me that they’re not even attempting to convince: they know that “everyone” on their feed is anti-Trump, and they’re just demonstrating their concurrence. I suppose it’s like shouting “Amen!” at a revival meeting.
“I don’t have that difficulty anymore.”
Absolutely. It was certainly a puzzle how masses of people—some of them extraordinarily intelligent—could be so utterly bamboozled. Though my comparison would be quite a bit more recent, say 1933-1945 Germany/Europe, or 1917-1989 Eastern Europe/World.
(Truly amazing how instructive and educational the Democratic Party, the MSCM and the more recent incarnation of the Liberal establishment can be…. with special mention to Bernie and Jane’s Excellent Adventure (in the USSR) in 1988.) https://www.rbth.com/history/331788-bernie-sanders-soviet-honeymoon-collusio
We should all be extremely grateful for these real-time lessons! (Those of us, that is, who’ve learned anything….)
M J R, are you serious? I haven’t seen a comment from you in a while so I can’t remember your usual leaning. I’ll take your comment at face value, I guess, and point out that taxable losses are legally used to offset taxable gains. No huhu, as Heinlein said.
Alex the Chick’s point seems a bit confused. He made $1M and $4.2M estimated payments, apparently, but only actually owed $750, so the payments were credited toward future liabilities. Not that it matters: Everything he did was legal, and the NYT idiots don’t understand how taxes real estate investing works, surprise, surprise.
Incidentally, I keep getting “Database connection error” when I try to get to that first link from monsternation.com. Has anyone else been able to get to it. Have they been cancelled?
There are a lot of people, a majority of Democrats I am sure, who have W2 income and have never run any sort of business. They are the audience for this stuff. A significant share of Republicans run or have run a small business of some sort. Thy know this is BS. The Pandemic and the closures have killed off a lot of small businesses. I sometimes wonder if this was an added incentive.
Kate alluded to something that I intended to post.
No more illegal than Trump’s use of tax law. But, this is what really caught my eye;
“According to their tax returns, in 2017 and 2018 Biden and his wife Jill avoided payroll taxes on nearly $13.3 million in income from book royalties and speaking fees.”
The Bidens may not quite be in the class of the Clintons and Obamas when it comes to cashing in on “public service”, but they are doing pretty well.
And if he wants a savage dig at Biden ask how Hunter’s tax returns are coming along. If I remember correctly Hunter couldn’t provide them to his stripper girlfriend in Biden’s grandson’s paternity support case as they were not complete.
No, just mention his grand children and ask Joe how many he has.
“No more illegal than Trump’s use of tax law.”
Makes NOT A JOT of difference, though. Doesn’t even make a difference if Biden’s case were more illegal. Or stupendously illegal.
See, when you’re running against the Anti-Christ, NOTHING matters. NOTHING AT ALL.
Not Biden’s tax returns. Not Hunter’s criminal career. Or Hunter’s father’s. Or his uncle’s. Not anything.
Moreover, thanks to the mighty and extraordinarily successful efforts of Hillary and her thugs, Obama and his—and the all-important, uber-loyal support of the 24/7 Prevarication Machine also known as the Mainstream Corrupt Media—of having fundamentally transformed Trump (and his supporters) into Satan and his band of deplorable devils, Biden can address the nation using word salad as his chosen medium (Green Goddess Dressing recommended).
Since Biden can do ANYTHING he wants, say anything he wants, make as big a fool of himself and his party as he wants (or doesn’t want, as the case may be), be as thuggish as he wants, as criminal as he wants, as pathetic, insincere, ridiculous, absurd and inane as he wants.
And IT DOESN’T MATTER a whit.
Simply because his opponent is the Devil Incarnate. (Just ask The Beautiful People(TM).)
Which is why Biden doesn’t have to make any sense, doesn’t even have to be compos mentis.
And why there likely won’t “need to be” any presidential debates.
(After all, HOW do you debate with Satan?…. And WHY even bother?)
To be sure, the other side of the coin is, “How do you debate with a dementia-addled thug whose party platform is America’s destruction”?
And the answer to that is, of course (DRUM ROLL): TRUMP, TRUMP, TRUMP.
File under: Taking the Democratic Party to the next level.
O/T: Anyone paying attention to tonight’s debate “prep”?
Team Trump wants Biden to be checked for an earpiece before the debate. Team Biden agreed originally but has since gone back on that agreement.
Should be oodles of laughs tonight. Because if I don’t laugh, I might cry. Might actually watch just to see for myself what really happens before the narrative changes everything in tomorrow’s news cycle.
Barry Meislin, Daniel Webster debated the devil once, didn’t he? I read about it in school. 🙂
Jamie (7:25 am) asked, “M J R, are you serious?”
My “EXTRA! EXTRA! EXCLUSIVE B*O*M*B*S*H*E*L*L” was intended as sarcasm.
My bracketed “[ — that’s 20*16*, folks — ]” was supposed to underscore that, in case anyone was skimming rapidly.
I guess I failed in my intent, at least for Jamie. So the short answer to Jamie’s “are you serious” is “no”.
It’s old news. Four years old, but the mainstreamers figure, correctly I fear, that peoples’ memories are so short that for them, it’s a brand new bombshell. And (while we’re at it) those mainstreamers who do know better are very happy to gleefully play it up anyway, for the benefit of those with short or no memories.
Jamie (7:25 am) continued, “I haven’t seen a comment from you in a while so I can’t remember your usual leaning.”
Definitely right-leaning. I am appalled at the prospect of the impending leftie mob rule.
Well, pleased to make your acquaintance, Jamie — I don’t recall you posting here very often either, so we’re starting out on equal footing [smile]. See ya . . .
Larry Correa’s link at his Monster Hunter Nation blog got posted on some high traffic sites, including Instapundit, the Scott Adams Twitter feed, and the Ace of Spades blog. The company providing the hosting services was unable to handle the resulting load, and the site was unavailable for hours as a result.
It’s back up again.
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A.G. Sulzberger is off his meds.
Everybody who pays one penny more in taxes than they are legally required to raise your hand.
About the second link, the NY Times has accessed thousands of employees of the Trump companies tax returns, as well. The excerpt of the Times article I read said so. That is very illegal and I hope somebody goes to jail.
“you know damned good and well that the IRS has sent their most fearsome auditor against him. This man sold his soul to the devil, and then fined the devil for failing to list that soul as a depreciable asset.”
ROFL
Tim, dang it!! You beat me to it!! I was looking forward anxiously to this post precisely so that I could paste that very quote. 🙂 An absolute classic.
So, all of a sudden, Hollywood and pro sports teams are bad because they show losses year after year?
No, of course not, because reasons.
There seems to be some public and journalist confusion over what the word ‘paid’ means. If I pay $100,000 to the IRS in a year in which I owe nothing, and have a resulting prepayment balance, then on a cash flow basis I have paid $100K. But it terms of effect on my net worth, I have paid nothing, because the $100K payment is offset by the $100K prepayment asset which has been created.
On FB today, I see people…known anti-Trumpers but also some who have been wavering…upset about 2 things:
–Trump’s tax rate will probably be much lower, after all the puts and takes are factored in, than that of most people (especially them!)
–Given the scale of the losses, maybe Trump isn’t the great businessman he has promoted himself as being.
Haven’t seen many people, thus far, concerned about the massive abuse of governmental authority perpetrated by the IRS people who leaked these returns.
My older brother, 86 years old is still a practicing tax accountant with his own firm that has a few clients, families that have been with the firm over 60 years who make and lose a lot of money in the oil and gas business mostly in Texas and Oklahoma. He and I were discussing the Trump tax situation and my brother told me that with all of Trump’s properties in so many different locations it would take a small team of accountants a few years to run a complete audit and Trump’s accountants and the IRS know how complicated that stuff is and Trump is not about to try to cheat on his taxes. When I took a tax accounting class in grad school about 50 years ago our professor told us the first day that he was not going to teach us how to do our own taxes but he was going to teach us how to talk to tax accountants when we were in responsible situations dealing with tax problems. He also explained the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion, avoidance using every legal loophole is part of the responsibility of every citizen and evasion is what send you to prison.
Is this supposed to persuade undecided voters or gin up the frothing hatred of the true believers? Because it sure isn’t dissuading any Republicans eager to fend off year zero.
I posted this elsewhere, but the NYT hasn’t actually been anxious to pay taxes during the Trump administration. A few years back NYT published and made a big deal about FedEx not paying taxes – until the FedEx CEO and founder Fred Smith called them out…
“the New York Times paid zero federal income tax in 2017 on earnings of $111 million”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fedex-tax-break-fedex-ceo-fred-smith-challenges-new-york-times-leaders-to-debate-over-tax-claims/
Anyone with substantial properties employs tax accountants to manage and minimize the tax liability, legally. Only a fool doesn’t. Joe and Jill Biden do, running royalty income through an S corp, which gives them substantial tax breaks perfectly legally.
David Foster: The NYT claims that their source was legally allowed to provide Trump’s tax returns. I’m not one for believing anything from the NYT without multiple independent verifications, but I at least am considering that Trump (though some channel) leaked them. It makes Hunter Biden’s various adventures fair game tomorrow night.
Not news: people that nurse at the public teat, make no income, and pay no taxes, have no idea how the tax code, written in part by Joe Biden in his 47 years of public service, works in practice.
Shocked, shocked, I am.
@John Fisher: that is a sweet, sweet conspiracy theory. Trump the troll master would totally do that sort of thing.
John Fisher…”I at least am considering that Trump (though some channel) leaked them”…I guess that’s possible as far as his own returns go, but I certainly hope he would not have leaked the tax returns of his *employees*.
The attack line I am sure that Trump will use on Biden when he is attacked on his taxes is that he is only using the tax code that Biden has voted for to legally reduce his tax liability. Then to finish it off with how Biden has sheltered and minimized his tax liability by running his speaking fees and royalties through a sub-chapter S corporation. Then commend him for saving money for his family.
Finally he should thank for NYT for proving him correct in confirming that his taxes are under audit and there is no Russian entanglements. That would disarm a lot of the attack lines I am sure Biden has prepared to unleash.
And if he wants a savage dig at Biden ask how Hunter’s tax returns are coming along. If I remember correctly Hunter couldn’t provide them to his stripper girlfriend in Biden’s grandson’s paternity support case as they were not complete.
EXTRA! EXTRA! EXCLUSIVE B*O*M*B*S*H*E*L*L ! !
New York Times, October 16, 2016 [ — that’s 20*16*, folks — ]
Donald Trump Acknowledges Not Paying Federal Income Taxes for Years
“Donald J. Trump explicitly acknowledged for the first time during Sunday’s debate that he used a $916 million loss that he reported on his 1995 income tax returns to avoid paying personal federal income taxes for years. Mr. Trump’s response — ‘Of course I do. Of course I do’ — was the fullest the wealthy developer had provided since The New York Times reported that he had declared the loss, and that the tax deduction could have been large enough to allow him to avoid federal income taxes for up to 18 years. Previously he had declined to comment on the documents, issuing a statement that neither challenged nor confirmed the $916 million loss.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/us/politics/donald-trump-taxes.html
It is genuinely astonishing how many people think the problem is that people still just don’t understand how terrible Trump is. That if they can just smear and defame and impugn Trump a little more, then everyone else will come to their senses.
I must admit that when I’ve read about mass hysteria in past ages, like the Salem witch trials, it’s been hard for me to understand how large groups of people just go off the deep end like that. I don’t have that difficulty anymore.
Mike
MBunge —
When FB acquaintances go off on Trump this and Trump that, I always wonder who they’re trying to convince.
After a while it occurred to me that they’re not even attempting to convince: they know that “everyone” on their feed is anti-Trump, and they’re just demonstrating their concurrence. I suppose it’s like shouting “Amen!” at a revival meeting.
“I don’t have that difficulty anymore.”
Absolutely. It was certainly a puzzle how masses of people—some of them extraordinarily intelligent—could be so utterly bamboozled. Though my comparison would be quite a bit more recent, say 1933-1945 Germany/Europe, or 1917-1989 Eastern Europe/World.
(Truly amazing how instructive and educational the Democratic Party, the MSCM and the more recent incarnation of the Liberal establishment can be…. with special mention to Bernie and Jane’s Excellent Adventure (in the USSR) in 1988.)
https://www.rbth.com/history/331788-bernie-sanders-soviet-honeymoon-collusio
We should all be extremely grateful for these real-time lessons! (Those of us, that is, who’ve learned anything….)
M J R, are you serious? I haven’t seen a comment from you in a while so I can’t remember your usual leaning. I’ll take your comment at face value, I guess, and point out that taxable losses are legally used to offset taxable gains. No huhu, as Heinlein said.
Alex the Chick’s point seems a bit confused. He made $1M and $4.2M estimated payments, apparently, but only actually owed $750, so the payments were credited toward future liabilities. Not that it matters: Everything he did was legal, and the NYT idiots don’t understand how taxes real estate investing works, surprise, surprise.
Incidentally, I keep getting “Database connection error” when I try to get to that first link from monsternation.com. Has anyone else been able to get to it. Have they been cancelled?
There are a lot of people, a majority of Democrats I am sure, who have W2 income and have never run any sort of business. They are the audience for this stuff. A significant share of Republicans run or have run a small business of some sort. Thy know this is BS. The Pandemic and the closures have killed off a lot of small businesses. I sometimes wonder if this was an added incentive.
Kate alluded to something that I intended to post.
WSJ editorial on 8/10/2020:
” How the Bidens Dodged the Payroll Tax”
“They used an S-corp to avoid paying more than $500,000 in levies for Medicare and ObamaCare.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-bidens-dodged-the-payroll-tax-11597083162
No more illegal than Trump’s use of tax law. But, this is what really caught my eye;
“According to their tax returns, in 2017 and 2018 Biden and his wife Jill avoided payroll taxes on nearly $13.3 million in income from book royalties and speaking fees.”
The Bidens may not quite be in the class of the Clintons and Obamas when it comes to cashing in on “public service”, but they are doing pretty well.
And if he wants a savage dig at Biden ask how Hunter’s tax returns are coming along. If I remember correctly Hunter couldn’t provide them to his stripper girlfriend in Biden’s grandson’s paternity support case as they were not complete.
No, just mention his grand children and ask Joe how many he has.
“No more illegal than Trump’s use of tax law.”
Makes NOT A JOT of difference, though. Doesn’t even make a difference if Biden’s case were more illegal. Or stupendously illegal.
See, when you’re running against the Anti-Christ, NOTHING matters. NOTHING AT ALL.
Not Biden’s tax returns. Not Hunter’s criminal career. Or Hunter’s father’s. Or his uncle’s. Not anything.
Moreover, thanks to the mighty and extraordinarily successful efforts of Hillary and her thugs, Obama and his—and the all-important, uber-loyal support of the 24/7 Prevarication Machine also known as the Mainstream Corrupt Media—of having fundamentally transformed Trump (and his supporters) into Satan and his band of deplorable devils, Biden can address the nation using word salad as his chosen medium (Green Goddess Dressing recommended).
Since Biden can do ANYTHING he wants, say anything he wants, make as big a fool of himself and his party as he wants (or doesn’t want, as the case may be), be as thuggish as he wants, as criminal as he wants, as pathetic, insincere, ridiculous, absurd and inane as he wants.
And IT DOESN’T MATTER a whit.
Simply because his opponent is the Devil Incarnate. (Just ask The Beautiful People(TM).)
Which is why Biden doesn’t have to make any sense, doesn’t even have to be compos mentis.
And why there likely won’t “need to be” any presidential debates.
(After all, HOW do you debate with Satan?…. And WHY even bother?)
To be sure, the other side of the coin is, “How do you debate with a dementia-addled thug whose party platform is America’s destruction”?
And the answer to that is, of course (DRUM ROLL): TRUMP, TRUMP, TRUMP.
File under: Taking the Democratic Party to the next level.
O/T: Anyone paying attention to tonight’s debate “prep”?
Team Trump wants Biden to be checked for an earpiece before the debate. Team Biden agreed originally but has since gone back on that agreement.
Should be oodles of laughs tonight. Because if I don’t laugh, I might cry. Might actually watch just to see for myself what really happens before the narrative changes everything in tomorrow’s news cycle.
Something else that really ought to matter…but won’t:
https://amgreatness.com/2020/09/28/bidens-texas-political-director-implicated-in-massive-mail-in-ballot-harvesting-scheme-in-harris-county/
And this is the crux of it all.
H/T Instapundit
Barry Meislin, Daniel Webster debated the devil once, didn’t he? I read about it in school. 🙂
Jamie (7:25 am) asked, “M J R, are you serious?”
My “EXTRA! EXTRA! EXCLUSIVE B*O*M*B*S*H*E*L*L” was intended as sarcasm.
My bracketed “[ — that’s 20*16*, folks — ]” was supposed to underscore that, in case anyone was skimming rapidly.
I guess I failed in my intent, at least for Jamie. So the short answer to Jamie’s “are you serious” is “no”.
It’s old news. Four years old, but the mainstreamers figure, correctly I fear, that peoples’ memories are so short that for them, it’s a brand new bombshell. And (while we’re at it) those mainstreamers who do know better are very happy to gleefully play it up anyway, for the benefit of those with short or no memories.
Jamie (7:25 am) continued, “I haven’t seen a comment from you in a while so I can’t remember your usual leaning.”
Definitely right-leaning. I am appalled at the prospect of the impending leftie mob rule.
Well, pleased to make your acquaintance, Jamie — I don’t recall you posting here very often either, so we’re starting out on equal footing [smile]. See ya . . .
Larry Correa’s link at his Monster Hunter Nation blog got posted on some high traffic sites, including Instapundit, the Scott Adams Twitter feed, and the Ace of Spades blog. The company providing the hosting services was unable to handle the resulting load, and the site was unavailable for hours as a result.
It’s back up again.