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深水不響, 響水不深Art of the Steal

(2016-10-03 10:27:17) 下一个

深水不響, 響水不深,
Deep water does not ring, ring of water is not deep,
Yes. Democracy educates you in perspective of others, particualar of your opponents. Read these 2 attachments: No doubt about Trump's genius, smart in his own business, by taking advantage of those less fortunated.
Big boys like this?

 

Art of the Steal: How Trump Avoided Tax (David Cay Johnston (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/02/donald-j-trump-can-t-shut-down-new-york-times-tax-story.html)


"". Trump will use his trickery for our benefit. “You’ve got to figure out who you’re working for,” Giuliani told NBC. In his exploitation of tax loopholes, Trump “was working for private interests,” the former mayor explained. But as president, Trump would work for America. The tax story “shows you what a genius he is,” Giuliani told ABC. “I want that working for me. I want to see if he can produce these kinds of results for us.” Sure, Trump played Uncle Sam for nearly $1 billion in tax breaks. But if we pay Trump a $400,000 salary, he’ll be on our side.""

Gather the facts, be informed, make your own conclustion, - cast your own vote from your own perspective. But, so sad. some don't want to hear, to read - or can't read these.
Don't jump your gun, shoot cursing words, only bounce back to yourself. That's all civilization about.
~~

 

 

 

REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst




 

WEAK!

 

Donald Trump Can’t Shut Down New York Times Tax-Leak Showing He Lost Nearly $1 Billion in 1995

Donald Trump may fashion himself as a winner, but the law is on the side of The New York Times. When it comes to his attempts in the past to shut down opponents, he has failed miserably.

Susan E. Seager

 

10.02.16 6:26 AM ET






Donald J. Trump’s threat to sue The New York Times for its report about his leaked 1995 state tax returns showing he lost nearly $1 billion is as predictable as it is laughable.  
Trump’s lawyer pledged “prompt initiation of appropriate legal action” against the Times, saying the Oct. 1 story was “illegal” because Trump did not authorize the release of his confidential tax returns.
What is the “appropriate” legal action?  None.  

Even my journalism students in my entry-level media law class know that the First Amendment provides an absolute legal shield to journalists who are sued for publishing lawfully obtained documents that are a matter of public concern.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings in Pentagon Papers, Florida Star v. B.J.F., and the tongue-twisting Bartnicki v. Vopper created a First Amendment protection for journalists who publish documents that are confidential by law – so long as the journalist is a passive recipient of the documents.  The journalist cannot be prosecuted for criminal violations or sued under civil privacy laws even if the leaker broke civil or criminal laws by obtaining or leaking the documents.
The internet is blowing up with stories saying that the Times could be prosecuted criminally under federal tax law 26 U.S. Code Section 7213(a)(3), which makes it a felony for “any person to … willfully print or publish” tax returns provided “in a manner unauthorized” by law. But this is a federal law governing federal tax returns and does not apply to the Times’ publication of Trump’s state tax returns. Even if it did apply, it would probably be unconstitutional as applied to the Times, but we don’t need to go there.
Watch: So Does Trump's Tax Maneuvering Make Him A Genius Or Irresponsible?
 


So Does Trump's Tax Maneuvering Make Him A Genius Or Irresponsible?
Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani think it's great. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, not so much.






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01:34










 
Which takes us back to Bartnicki, where the Supreme Court ruled that the government could not punish a radio journalist for airing an illegally taped phone call because the journalist received the tape from a third-party and the tape was a matter of public concern. “We think it clear that …that a stranger’s illegal conduct does not suffice to remove the First Amendment shield from [a journalist’s] speech about a matter of public concern.”
There can be no dispute that the tax returns of a current presidential candidate are a matter of public concern, especially when that candidate is campaigning as a successful businessman, has several active businesses and business ties that may influence his decisions as president, and pledges to drastically change the tax code.  The Times says it was a passive recipient of the documents, which were mailed anonymously.  Trump, therefore, could not win a lawsuit against the Times based on a claim for violation of secrecy laws governing tax returns or invasion of privacy.

But, hey, the First Amendment never got in the way of Trump threatening or filing frivolous lawsuits to chill speech.
My study of the six speech-related cases filed by Trump & Co. found that all five filed in public courts were dismissed before trial.  Trump’s only victory came in a private arbitration decided by a rent-a-judge who declared Trump the winner because the defendant was a no-show.
Here’s a walk down Trump’s Libel Walk of Shame, from LOL to ha ha.
My favorite is when Trump sued Bill Maher, host of HBO political talk show Real Time in 2013. Trump was in full birther mode at the time, trafficking his racist claim that our first black president, Barack Obama, was born in Kenya and demanding to see his birth certificate.  
Maher launched his own birther attack: Maher would donate $5 million to charity if Trump would provide his birth certificate to disprove he was the “spawn of his mother having sex with an orangutan.” 
Trump provided his birth certificate and filed a $5 million breach of contract lawsuit against Maher, only to quickly withdraw it, robbing Maher of the pleasure of slapping down one of LA’s silliest cases, even by crybaby Hollywood-celebrity standards.
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Just two months ago, a federal judge in Las Vegas bounced the deceptive advertising lawsuit filed in 2015 by Trump’s Las Vegas hotel companies against two labor unions for calling Trump anti-union.  As the judge ruled on Aug. 8, labor protests are hardly advertising. 
Trump’s greediest lawsuit was his $5-billion libel lawsuit filed in 2006 against Timothy O’Brien for saying in his book TrumpNation, The Art of Being The Donald, that Trump was at best worth $250 million, not the billions Trump claimed. 
A Jersey court dismissed the case because Trump failed to prove O’Brien had “any actual doubts” about the accuracy of his book and Trump lacked any “reliable” evidence that he was worth billions, admitting his net worth is “based on [his]own feelings.”
Trump University – Trump’s for-profit real estate “school” – lost its $1-million libel lawsuit in 2014 against a former Trump U student. Trump U sued Tarla Makaeff in California for saying Trump U and its affiliates engaged in “deceptive business practices,” “trickery,” and “fraud.” It took four years, but the libel claim was dismissed by a federal judge who ruled that Trump U failed to prove that the former student published with knowing falsity. 
Trump fell in love with libel litigation when he filed his first libel lawsuit in 1984 against the Chicago Tribune and its architecture critic for calling Trump’s 1980’s plan to erect a 150-story Manhattan skyscraper “aesthetically lousy.”  The lawsuit was dismissed by a federal judge in New York who said there is no accounting for taste and Trump should get a thicker skin.
Trump has one “victory:” Trump’s Miss Universe/Miss USA pageant company sued and won a $5-million default libel judgment in 2013 against Miss USA contestant in Sheena Monnin for calling the Miss USA pageant “rigged.”  (Was she sued for using Trump’s favorite word?)  But Monnin got bad advice from her attorney to skip the private arbitration, which was decided by a rent-a-judge who gave Trump a victory based on Monnin’s default.  Winning by default is not a true win.  It’s just good luck.
The Times is not likely sweating its tax return story.  When faced with real lawyers and real judges who know about the First Amendment and libel law, Trump & Co. gets kicked out of court.

Susan Seager is a First Amendment attorney in Los Angeles who teaches media law at the University of Southern California.
 
 
 

Photo illustration by Kelly Caminero/The Daily Beast




 

LOOPHOLE

 

Art of the Steal: This is How Trump Lost $916M and Avoided Tax

This is how Donald Trump’s accountants and lawyers most likely used the tax code to avoid paying income tax for almost two decades.
David Cay Johnston

David Cay Johnston

 

10.03.16 8:41 AM ET






The big New York Times scoop that Donald Trump used $916 million of tax losses to enjoy many income tax-free years raised a question the newspaper didn’t try to answer: How did Trump do it?
Trump, the only major-party presidential nominee in four decades to keep all his tax returns secret, insists “there’s nothing to learn from them.”
Yet in one day I figured out how Trump’s advisers almost certainly arranged the massive tax losses, skipped out on a massive income-tax bill, and then fashioned a loophole with more valuable tax benefits than the already liberal tax breaks Congress gives big real-estate owners while sticking others with the bill.

Trump dumped the real costs of all this on investors who saw gold in his brand name, but who lost everything even as he was paid tens of millions of tax-free dollars.
All this came from subtle clues on the front pages of Trump’s 1995 Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York state income-tax returns. Which sums were on which lines in each state pointed to how Trump must have organized his affairs. Two of the most respected tax professors in America agree with my analysis. Edward Kleinbard of the University of Southern California and Martin J. McMahon Jr. of the University of Florida refined my view.
Trump’s gambit is easy to explain in plain English, but for tax wonks the short version is this: Trump combined tax benefits under Section 1231 of the Internal Revenue Code with the exception provisions in Section 108.
The story of Trump’s income tax-free life begins in 1990 with Trump’s well-documented mismanagement of his casinos and his admission that he paid far too much for “trophy properties” like the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan and 23 worn-out jetliners for the short-lived Trump Shuttle airline.
These mistakes created about $1 billion of “net operating losses,” or NOLs, under Section 1231 of the tax code.
NOLs are incredibly valuable. These tax losses can be used to offset salaries, business profits, and income from, say, a television show or making neckties in China. Thanks to his $916 million of NOLs, Trump could earn much over 18 years in salaries, profits, and interest, but pay no income taxes.

Net operating losses should reflect economic damage suffered by the owner of the NOLs. But Trump found a way to gain from these losses by spreading the costs around to bankers and investors.
NOLs can be used right away or be applied to reduce taxes from two previous years and up to 15 future years. In contrast, Congress requires that real estate be depreciated for tax purposes over 39 years. The faster a tax break becomes available, the greater its value. Trump’s advisers found a way to convert real-estate depreciation into NOLs that were much more flexible and could be used faster.
Trump claimed to be worth billions in 1990, just as he does now, yet he could not pay his bills. He stiffed hundreds of small-business suppliers, including those for the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, which will go out of business next week. In all he owed more $3 billion, nearly a third of his debt secured by nothing more substantial than his signature on bank loan papers.
Last May, Trump revealed that he took on debt with no intention of paying it all back, which strikes me as fraud. “I’ve borrowed knowing you can pay back with discounts,” he told CNBC in May, boasting “I’ve done well with debt.”
Back then Trump threatened endless litigation unless 70 banks he owed money gave him millions more in new loans at low interest rates and provided him with $5.4 million a year for personal spending, the equivalent of $10 million in today’s money.
Back then, one billionaire told The New York Times he didn’t know how to spend that much on himself and his family.
What made the litigation threat credible was Trump’s refusal to pay more than 150 illegal immigrants who demolished the Bonwit Teller department store to make way for Trump Tower. A federal judge ruled that Trump conspired to cheat the workers, who never did collect all of their $4-an-hour wages despite an 18-year struggle.
The bankers realized that a man who would endure almost two decades of litigation to avoid paying such meager wages might tie them up for eternity over the billions of dollars owed to them.
When the New Jersey Casino Control Commission took Trump’s side against his bankers, they gave in. The banks canceled close to a billion dollars of Trump’s debts and extended new loans on favorable terms.
Normally, any part of a loan that is forgiven becomes taxable income, as millions of people who could not repay home mortgages or student loan debt have learned in recent years.
That’s where Section 108 comes in. Three years after Trump bested his bankers, Congress amended that section to let real-estate professionals avoid income taxes on debts that were canceled.
The technique is simple. The taxes due immediately because a debt is forgiven can be exchanged for relinquishing future real-estate tax deductions. Trump agreed to forgo his future right to take about $1 billion worth of depreciation on his casino hotels.
This exchange created a future problem for Trump. Real estate that cannot be depreciated is worth a lot less. Indeed, generous tax benefits drive real-estate investment. So while Trump escaped an immediate income-tax bill, the future tax benefits he gave up would mean that he would likely have to pay income taxes on his salary, fees for licensing his name, and other income.
To solve this problem, Trump sold stock for the first time in 1995. He founded Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts, which which then took ownership of his casino hotels.
That meant Trump got money for selling his casino hotels, while the investors got real estate with greatly diminished tax benefits.
Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts was a complete disaster. It lost money every year. During Trump’s 13 years as chairman, the company lost $1.1 billion. Trump stock fell from a high of $35 to just 17 cents, wiping out investors.
Trump did just fine, though. He was paid $82 million, Fortune magazine estimated. The publicly traded company even took out loans that were used to pay off some of Trump’s remaining obligations to the banks from when he owned his casinos outright.
The $82 million Trump was paid by the publicly traded company bearing his name should have all been received income tax-free thanks to those NOLs. Thus his mismanagement, and the tax benefits he stripped out of the casino hotels before he sold them to shareholders, made him richer and them poorer.
So while Trump made money at every turn, the banks that lent him money, the workers and small businesses who delivered for Trump, and the investors in his casino company all got stiffed. And while they paid taxes on whatever income they did manage to collect, Trump enjoyed at least $916 million of tax-free income.
In the first debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump did not dispute her statement that he pays no income taxes. Instead he said it shows he is smart.
That may be, but it also suggests the rest of us are chumps for paying our taxes while Trump enjoys all the benefits of the United States government—little things like individual liberty, the FBI, and a military to protect us—while bearing none of the burden. If we all did as Trump does, we would, to quote a line Trump employs often, not have our country anymore.
Just three pages of tax forms, years of assiduously following Trump, and a deep knowledge of tax law allowed me to determine how the way he almost certainly arranged to escape income taxes for years while he stuck others with the bill. Now imagine what voters could learn if I had just one complete Trump tax return or years of his Form 1040s and Schedules A through E. It would be possible then to evaluate his unverifiable claims that he is a modern Midas worth more than $10 billion.
A complete tax return for 1995 would also make it possible to determine if Trump followed the law, as a statement he issued asserts, or misreported figures to inflate his tax savings.
Trump has been found more than once to have used two sets of figures to short others and benefit himself.
Keep in mind that we know Trump engaged in sales tax fraud, as I detail in my book The Making of Donald Trump.
Earlier this year I revealed badges of fraud on Trump’s 1984 income-tax returns.
Under oath, his own tax lawyer and accountant disowned the return.
Then there’s Trump’s role in authorizing an alleged quarter-billion-dollar income-tax fraud on profits from the Trump SoHo in Manhattan. The profits were run through a corrupt Icelandic bank under the control of one of the many Russian oligarchs whom Trump has said have paid him tens of millions of dollars and are among his best customers.
Trump’s full tax returns would help us understand how deeply he is involved with the oligarchs, whose fortunes and even lives depend on maintaining friendship with Vladimir Putin, the murderous Russian autocrat whom Trump goes out of his way to praise at every opportunity. Trump’s full tax returns would also tell us about his debts to the Bank of China, owned by the communist rulers in Beijing, and his many deals with Middle East potentates and their retainers.
Knowing how much leverage these foreign power brokers have on Trump is highly relevant since he wants to become commander in chief and possess the powers of federal law enforcement.
What I distilled from just three pages of Trump tax documents—together with other reporting—provides Congress with ample reasons to investigate Trump’s finances, especially the way the tax code can be abused to cheat others and enjoy tax-free living.
Trump, who demands that Congress press investigations into his opponent over personal emails, surely could have no complaint about the use of federal tax dollars to investigate his finances. After all, while a federal investigation into Trump’s conduct will cost us some of our income-tax dollars, it wouldn’t cost Trump a penny.
 
 





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National Geographic Channel



   

The Violent Assault That Changed a Presidency

The movie event Killing Reagan premieres Sunday, October 16 at 8/7c on the National Geographic Channel.

The Daily Beast

 

09.25.16 9:00 PM ET






On March 30, 1981, six shots were fired from a .22-caliber pistol at the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. On one side of the gun: a deranged John Hinckley Jr., misguided by his obsession with Jodie Foster. On the other side: President Ronald Reagan. Though Hinckley failed in his assassination attempt, the violent assault succeeded in changing the presidency, a man, and his marriage.
Based on the best-selling book by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, KILLING REAGAN charts the events that led to this moment of national terror, and the unexpected imprints it made on history. “It’s a riveting period of history,” says O’Reilly, “with effects that reverberated through the whole world.”
KILLING REAGAN is the fourth installment of the series, following Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, and Killing Jesus, which have earned multiple Emmy nominations.

The film covers the event that sent the White House—and the nation—into a chaos, rewriting the course of history: The president’s popularity surged during his recovery, and the assassination attempt forever changed the intimate dynamics of his marriage. 
“This isn’t so much a political thriller as it is a psychological thriller,” explains director Rod Lurie. “We get deep into the head of Reagan and get even deeper into the heart of his love story with Nancy. We get into Hinckley’s insanity, but we also get into the tick-tock of the environment that drove him to want to murder Reagan.”  
National Geographic Channel's world premiere television movie event "Killing Reagan" airs Sunday, October 16th at 8/7c.
This content was produced by The National Geographic Channel and not by The Daily Beast editorial staff.

 
~~`

 

 

 

The Trump Campaign’s Tax Defense Is a 14-Point Study in Nihilism

 

John Oliver Explains Why Police Accountability Is About More Than Just “a Few Bad Apples”




 

 

 




 
Slate
Politics
Who's winning, who's losing, and why.
Oct. 3 2016 11:52 AM

The Trump Campaign’s Tax Defense: Nihilism


63

143
 

Trump henchmen Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani write off the tax scandal with 14 soulless arguments.

By


 
 
Christie, Giuliani
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani attend the presidential debate at Hofstra University on Sept. 26 in Hempstead, New York.
Win McNamee/Getty Images

D
onald Trump likes to denounce other people for not paying taxes. Four years ago, he tweeted, “HALF of Americans don’t pay income tax despite crippling govt debt.” He complained that President Obama “only pays 20.5% on $790k salary. … Do as I say not as I do.” Last year, Trump groused that hedge fund managers “make a fortune, they pay no tax. It’s ridiculous … They’re making a tremendous amount of money. They have to pay taxes.”
William Saletan William Saletan
Will Saletan writes about politics, science, technology, and other stuff for Slate. He’s the author of Bearing Right.
Now it turns out that Trump himself may have sidestepped the IRS. Excerpts from his 1995 returns, leaked to the New York Times, show that he claimed a loss of nearly $1 billion, enough to cancel out many years of future earnings. We don’t know what he paid for sure, because Trump—unlike every other major-party presidential nominee since 1980—hasn’t released his returns. But the leaked documents create a presumption that for some time after 1995, as he raked in hundreds of millions of dollars, he paid no income tax.
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Most politicians would be embarrassed by such a disclosure. Not Trump. He and his surrogates are out in force, spinning his tax avoidance as a virtue. Here are their rationalizations.
1. It’s legal. Trump and his advisers point out that the Times didn’t say his write-offs were unlawful. In a Sunday morning interview on ABC’s This Week, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani proclaimed: “This man has been audited every year. Never once has a criminal charge been brought against him. Never once has he been accused of violating the law.” Well, there are those pesky suits alleging fraud and racial discrimination. But as to criminal charges, the statement is correct. It’s also hypocritical. According to Trump, the government’s failure to indict Hillary Clinton over her emails shows that the system is rigged. But its failure to indict Trump is vindication. 2. There’s no proof he didn’t pay taxes. “All the story said was that kind of loss can be used for up to 18 years,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie pointed out on Fox News Sunday. “The New York Times does not have any information in that story that says Mr. Trump did not pay taxes.” Again, this is technically true. But it’s odd to hear such a lawyerly excuse from Trump’s campaign, which could settle the matter by releasing his returns.
3. This justifies our refusal to release his returns. The Times article illustrates “why releasing tax returns is so bad,” Giuliani complained on Meet the Press. “Somewhere around paragraph 18 they point out there was no wrongdoing. … And that’s why maybe somebody doesn’t want to put out their tax returns, because somebody will distort it that way.” The leaked pages from Trump’s tax returns were out of context. Therefore, Trump will continue to hide the context.
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4. He paid other taxes. Giuliani claims Trump paid “hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes: state taxes, local taxes, excise taxes.” When Chuck Todd asked how voters could be sure of this, given Trump’s refusal to release his returns, Giuliani replied: “Because if he didn’t, he’d be in jail.” Trump’s lack of convictions, in a criminal sense, serves as his standard of ethics. And his payment of some taxes excuses his circumvention of others.
5. Everybody does it. According to Trump’s spokesmen, using loopholes to avoid taxes is a fine American tradition. “Forty-four percent, 45 percent of America doesn’t pay income tax,” Giuliani boasted on CNN’s State of the Union. That figure is down slightly from four years ago, when Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney complained that “47 percent of Americans pay no income tax” (which led Giuliani to agree “that too high a percentage of Americans are not paying taxes”). Romney saw these people as freeloaders. Trump sees them as excuses for his own freeloading.
6. Trump is a genius. In their Sunday interviews, Christie and Giuliani used this word 14 times. “The man is a genius. He knows how to operate the tax code for the benefit of the people he’s serving,” Giuliani told CNN. On ABC, the former mayor effused: “He’s a genius at how to take advantage of legal remedies that can help your company survive and grow.” Gaming the system isn’t a vice. It’s a talent.
7. Losses are a sign of business acumen. CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Giuliani how Trump could be such a genius if he lost nearly $1 billion in a year. Giuliani explained that Tapper was naïve for focusing on the loss rather than on Trump’s use of the loss as a tax ploy. “There are not very many smart businessmen who don’t take advantage of the legal tax laws that are there. And if they are, then they are not very good businessmen,” Giuliani argued. “They don’t have very good lawyers, and they don’t have very good accountants.” Anyone can make money. To be great, you have to lose money and parlay the loss, through your lawyers and accountants, into a gain.
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8. Failure is a step toward success. On NBC, Giuliani portrayed Trump’s 1995 losses as a sign that he could turn America around. Trump “did something we admire in America: He came back,” said Giuliani. “So did Steve Jobs. So did Winston Churchill. … Great men have big failures. And then they take those failures and they turn them into great results.” If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Unless you’re Obama or Clinton, in which case you should be fired.
9. Only an abuser can fix the system. “I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them,” Trump tweeted in response to the Times story. As president, Trump would continue to apply his intricate knowledge of the system. He would not, however, continue to exploit that knowledge. Believe me.
10. Trump did it for others. Trump’s campaign says he had “a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required.” When Tapper pointed out that the document in question was Trump’s personal tax return, not a corporate filing, Giuliani expanded this argument, insisting that anyone connected to Trump’s finances—investors, partners, lenders—could sue him for failing to use tax loopholes. Such a failure wouldn’t just be a business mistake, Giuliani argued. It would be a “breach” of “fiduciary duty” and might cost employees their jobs. Essentially, this is trickle-down altruism. No matter how self-serving Trump’s chicanery was, he had to do it for the little guy.
11. To pay the taxes would have been selfish. On ABC, Giuliani said a businessman would rightly be sued by investors if he refused to exploit tax loopholes “because it may make me look bad when I’m running for president.” Doing what’s best for the country, on the grounds that you might be held publicly accountable for your conduct, is a sin. Resist that temptation, and do the right thing: take the money.
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12. Trump will use his trickery for our benefit. “You’ve got to figure out who you’re working for,” Giuliani told NBC. In his exploitation of tax loopholes, Trump “was working for private interests,” the former mayor explained. But as president, Trump would work for America. The tax story “shows you what a genius he is,” Giuliani told ABC. “I want that working for me. I want to see if he can produce these kinds of results for us.” Sure, Trump played Uncle Sam for nearly $1 billion in tax breaks. But if we pay Trump a $400,000 salary, he’ll be on our side.
13. Trump is a hero for promising to stop people from doing what he did. On Fox News, Christie offered “no apologies” for Trump’s tax maneuvers. In fact, Christie said the campaign was “taking a bow” for Trump’s having pledged to reform tax laws like those he exploited. “Donald Trump has been the one person who, against his own personal interests, has said that he wants to change those tax laws,” said the governor. Trump should be praised for sheltering his earnings, not condemned, because it shows how much future income he might have to give up if he reforms the tax code.
14. There’s no proof that Americans pay their taxes. “Most Americans pay their federal income taxes,” Tapper told Giuliani. But Giuliani wasn’t buying it: “Well, I don’t know. You don’t know most Americans, and I don’t know most Americans.” Trump withholds his returns and says you can’t prove he hasn’t paid up. But you don’t get the same presumption of innocence.
Together, these arguments paint a portrait of nihilism. In Trump’s campaign, the standard of moral conduct is staying out of jail. Hypocrisy is a boast. Gamesmanship and freeloading are virtues. Capitalism is about fielding the best lawyers, not the best products. And the best way for rich people to help the poor and the middle class is to stiff the government.
How much money has Trump paid in taxes? Without his returns, we can’t know. But from what he and his surrogates have said since the Times story came out, we know what’s in his soul and the souls of his henchmen: nothing.
Read more Slate coverage of the 2016 campaign.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/10/trump_s_no_taxation_representation.html

 

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