Reply to The BIG ONE: 20 years of Trump taxes obtained by NYTs

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm a small business owner. Own multiple small businesses and several real estate investments. high 6 to 7 figure/annum income depending on the year. DESPISE TRUMP and am disgusted he is president. But there is nothing here. I haven't paid much tax for decades but I do pay our CPA a nice chunk of change to legally and cleanly make most of my taxes disappear. I believe most entrepreneurs, business owners and real estate investors end up paying minimal income tax. I know lot of folks earning millions a year paying less in tax than our school bus driver. Why blame trump for doing the same?

I'm just so worried that all this desperation by Dems and mainstream media to bring him down is going to blow up in our faces.[/quote]

You’re a liar or your CPA is breaking the law.  I’m also a small business owner, revenue was $3 million in 2019.  Legally I can’t expense my clothes or haircuts.  Why can Trump? I can deduct mileage but legally I can’t expense a car.  Why can Trump?  Sure, some of this has to do with real estate depreciation...but his fraudulent expenses and deductions are outrageous.  You should get a new CPA before you’re audited.[/quote]

+1.  While there are lots of ways to manipulate that numbers, at the end of the day your deductions have to reflects actual expenses incurred.  While you may be able to manipulate numbers to show little or no tax obligations for a few years, eventually the chickens come home to roost.  If they don’t, you’re probably engaged in tax fraud.[/quote]

Im the small business owner who posted the original post. Actually the tax code and legal framework of USA rewards entrepreneurs and business owners. Capitalists who make the economy run and provide jobs. And yes it is perfectly legal to have minimal tax liability for years or even decades.  it’s not difficult to do if you are a serial entrepreneur like trump is. Understand the big picture he has 500 business entities and losses from some offset profits from another. Some of those losses incurred are paper loss due to legally used strategies like amortization depreciation etc. those paper losses offset real profit and you can continue to do this serially maybe perpetuallly. Yes I have been audited three times and once resulted in IRS sending me a refund back as well. I despise trump but there is no story here. Maybe it’s not ethical or moral but it possibly is legal use of loopholes created by generations of tax code and laws (by both parties). I’ve worked with my CPA two and a half decades and he has been in business two decades before that. No I dont think anything we do is illegal based on posts from strangers on internet who don’t understand specific tax scenarios [/quote]

So you're counting on nurses, fire fighters and teachers to fund your military, roads, health care, and safety because -- I'm sorry what was the reason for your tax advantaged situation? Because you take massive risks and live off other peoples' money?

Sorry, that sucks. And I'm self-employed and own 5 rental properties. I haven't had W-2 income in 30 years, but I still pay taxes. Because it's right.[/quote]

This guy is full of shit.  If he hasn't paid taxes in decades its because he, like Trump, hasn't made money in decades.  Post '86 the creation of "paper" losses largely went away.  Before you scream "real estate", the advantage is in segregating properties and being able to more widely use PALs.  Some adjustment to the PIG rules.  Nothing special.

In the end, if you don't generate actual economic loss, you get no loss.  Amortization of expenses requires a real outlay of cash.  Depreciation requires the acquisition of real property using real money (whether it be yours or the bank's is of no moment).  The days of fantastically allocating losses to non-economic partners is long, long gone.

No tax professional, including me (27 years as a tax attorney, albeit international and international finance and not real estate and partnership), disputes using actual economic expenses as a deductible offset against activity that generates real economic income.  But the indications here, if even partially true, paint a vastly different picture.  The payment to Ivanka as a consultant while she was also an employee.  With some very, very narrow exceptions, this is straight-up, black letter law no longer permissible.  It just isn't.  The payments for hair, make-up and clothing are similarly suspect.  Especially, the clothing!  It is long been the rule that clothing cannot be deducted unless it can only be used for the purposes of your job.  If it is even CONCEIVABLE that that clothing could be worn outside the confines of your job, it is a nondeductible personal expense.  The casino.  He walked away using a small provision that allows people to not recognize income from the discharge of indebtedness when they abandon a bankrupt business.  Problem is, Trump retained a piece.  Thus, it is ALL recognizable as income.  It does not qualify as even a partial loss.  Again, black-letter law.

There are all sorts of other issues that are disclosed.  The guy has personally guaranteed loans for 500 million dollars coming due soon.  Contrary to what one poster posited, they are not performance guarantees.  That's not how guarantees work.  Who does he owe the money to?  For what?  Is he liquid enough?  What's the refi status?  Is anyone willing to extend the term or refi?

It may turn out that all of this is legitimate in terms of the application of the tax laws.  I doubt it.  But it might.  It's a simple matter for him to clear up, though.  If even the Trump Org lawyer could do better than "filled with gross inaccuracies".  Which ones?  Which are accurate?

There is an old adage in the tax law (and probably elsewhere) that pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.  We know he's a pig and right now odds are he's a hog too.
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