The New York Times published a shocking story about Donald Trump’s legal evasion of federal taxes. Someone leaked portions of Trump’s tax returns to the Times. The paper checked with his accountant who confirmed that the returns were accurate.
His losses were so large on his failed business enterprises that Trump may not have paid federal taxes for 18 years.
He said at the first debate that not paying taxes shows how smart he is. If everyone could do what Trump does, how would the federal government function? Would veterans hospitals close? Would military spending end? Would funding for all federal programs collapse?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I recently read an autobiography of a famous German soccer player from the 80s. He wrote about how fortunate he felt to have made a lot of money and how, when many European athletes were moving to Monaco and other tax havens, he felt proud to be able to pay his taxes because his country had given him so much. He was happy to give back to let others experience the opportunity his country provided him. It was his civic duty and he felt a closer bond to his nation and its people. Interesting contrast to Donald Drumpf and his progeny.
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A very sad thing in our “free” country where we have multiple free parks, playgrounds, clinics, schools, libraries, paved roads, bridges and other wonderful, beautiful, life-giving amenities….is that so many citizens have no idea that many of these things are paid for with our TAXES.
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And that player is/was. . . ?
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I just watched a movie “Queen of Katwe”. It is the true story of being considerate for the unfortunate. It is the powerful way of giving hope and literacy to the poor children with love and caring from the missionary couple.
The true GOAL of PUBLIC education should be all about kindness, appreciation, caring, motivation and support from leadership to followers.
Money can buy convenience and comfort. Money owner with control will transform the owner to become a slave for devils, whereas with kindness and support to the unfortunate, money owner will NOT ONLY alleviate the sufferance of the unfortunate, BUT ALSO bring the enlightenment to himself.
It is not too late for all Ed-reformers to reconsider the welfare of their own fate as well as the GREAT AMERICA with its renowned democracy.
Why do all dictators run to America and Canada for the mercy of American and Canadian kindness after their failure? Back2basic.
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I wonder what else Trump’s tax returns reveal. Driving through rural Ohio this weekend, the Trump signs are everywhere. Yet, these Ohioans have been watching their children leave the state, schools decline, jobs disappear, and standards of living erode under a vile, vindictive Republican governor. And the misguided minions continue to vote against their own interests. It is even more bizarre that so many are living on government assistance or Social Security. There are many teachers supporting Trump and the GOP who seem confused and oblivious to the threat Republicans pose to their livelihoods. Strange times.
Trump’s supporters will bush this off or try to rationalize the fact Trump is now proven a failed businessman nor does he “tell it like it is”. In this sense, Trump’s ridiculing his supporters saying he could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and commit a crime is probably the one true thing Trump has uttered in this campaign.
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“AND the misguided minions continue to vote against their own interests.” The word “minions” is perhaps the only explanation for this massive lack of logic.
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This is the best part:
“The documents show, for example, that while Mr. Trump reported $7.4 million in interest income in 1995, he made only $6,108 in wages, salaries and tips.”
He’s too much of a deadbeat even to pay himself a normal salary and pay taxes on THAT.
I don’t know why anyone is surprised- 3500 contractors have sued Donald Trump for cheating them on goods or services. He doesn’t pay people who do work for him. He robs people as a matter of course. That’s BESIDES all the people he stiffed with the business bankruptcies and the rip-off scams like Trump University.
You don’t need to know anymore about him than that. It’s not going to get BETTER if what he’s hiding is revealed. It will get worse.
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Completely consistent with his character, Donald Trump has a long history of attacking other people for not paying federal income taxes.
He’s one of the Republicans who complains about people who don’t earn enough to pay federal income taxes- Mitt Romney’s “47%”
If he hadn’t have inherited a bunch of high value real estate in a prime location no one would have ever heard of this person or this family. The only reason we know who they are is 1. they inherited property 2. in New York City.
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To quote Barry Switzer, “Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.”
If the Bush boys, Romney, Trump, and the rest of the trust fund babies, actually believing they deserve their wealth, had to earn their way, they’d be living paycheck to paycheck like the rest of America. Watching the Trump family invade my living room is doubly disgusting.
The NYT article undermines Trump’s claim he is a capable businessman. It also highlights his inability to “tell it like it is”.
I know of few normal people who lose their job, have their car stolen, get foreclosed on, get sick, or a number of any other personal difficulties causing financial loss, and then get an 18 year pass on paying taxes.
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I think it makes it hard for regular people to play by the rules because it isn’t admired or valued.
I pay a lot more federal income taxes than the Trump Family. You start to feel like that’s a sucker move- like the way to get ahead is to cheat as many people as humanly possible while remaining out of prison.
Trump brags about paying small contractors 60 or 70% on the contract. You and I pay 100%. I would not cheat a painter out of 30 or 40% of money he earned. For one thing I couldn’t do it, because I’d have trouble getting a decent painter next time.
The rules just don’t apply to these people and that is fundamentally unfair. This isn’t “merit” – it’s rewarding bad behavior.
We see it every day, over and over and over. No upper management were fired in Wells Fargo, let alone prosecuted. They’re thieves and they’re rewarded while lower level workers are punished.
It can’t continue. Ordinary people will stop voluntarily complying with laws and ethical norms, because why should they?
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More than the fact that he wouldn’t have paid federal income tax in subsequent years, the story shows he posted losses of nearly one billion dollars in that year alone. He was not smart, he was a really, really lousy businessman.
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Trump and the hedge funders are alike. They’re all takers. However, the financial sector trumps Trump by dragging down GDP by an estimated 2%. According to the Roosevelt Institute’s research, the financial sector causes the loss of American retirement savings by half.
Both candidates have sons-in-law operating in hedge funds.
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Several years ago, Reuters released a study that found $31 trillion in global wealth is sitting inactive in tax havens. By now it could double that. The goal of the 1% is to starve the masses to control the masses. Yet people continue to vote for Trump.
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I need to say, “people continue to vote for Trumps”.
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The study was done by James Henry, an economist (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-offshore-wealth-idUSBRE86L03U20120722). Not surprisingly, the $31 trillion figure is controversial among economists who research this issue. The low-end of estimates appears to be $7 trillion. So, in any event, a huge sum of money.
This phenomenon doesn’t appear to have much to do with hedge funds (which makes sense — hedge funds would seem to be the last kind of firm to let a billion dollars sit in an offshore bank account).
From Cass Sunstein’s review of a book on this topic. Note the statement that 50% of Russian wealth is held outside Russia.
“The fractions of wealth held abroad are highly variable. In Europe, it is about 10 percent. In African and Latin countries, it is much higher—between 20 percent and 30 percent. In Russia, it is a whopping 52 percent. It follows that while tax havens hit wealthy nations hardest in absolute terms, they can have especially destructive effects on poorer or developing countries, because such a high percentage of their money is offshore. Zucman does not explain why this is so, but it is possible to speculate that one reason is rampant corruption within both the public and private sectors. The extraordinarily high figure for Russia might be best understood as involving money corruptly acquired or invested, which suggests an important point: all uses of tax havens are not the same. Sometimes government officials are the ones who are evading taxes, and they do not want to stop that evasion.”
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/01/14/parking-the-big-money/
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The analysis and conclusion are interesting.
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I haven’t been a big supporter of Hillary Clinton although I will vote for her, but I have to say she seems to understand why younger people are so fed up with her “children of the recession” comments.
My two oldest graduated college right into the recession and they were affected by it. They’re much more skeptical than I was at that age- they don’t trust the basic financial system. One of them has purchased property- a apartment in a city- and he has absolutely no faith in the reported value of the property. He’s pretty sophisticated, he works in “fintech” and he understands the finance sector- he just doesn’t believe a word they say 🙂
It makes it hard to invest, I would think. They don’t believe that “worth” or “value” is reliable or pegged to anything. I have to say I’m starting to agree with them.
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Hillary’s speech writer missed the mark with the “children of the recession living in parents’ basements.” It sounds demeaning, and, frankly, she needs to court their vote to beat the “tangerine dream.” She should have shown more empathy for their plight with a less judgmental tone and actually won some of them over. I know she was speaking to donors, but everyone has a camera today. Remember Romney’s big gaffe.
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This just underlines the importance of voting for Hillary to block this out of control train wreck (DT) from becoming president. Voting for Stein or any other kind of a protest vote is a vote for Trump. The appalling thing, in a sea of appalling, is that most of Trump’s federal income tax finagling is legal. Trump is just the tip of the iceberg of the 1% class and their corporations not paying their fair share in taxes. The billionaire class is hell bent on destroying public schools, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the ACA, etc., just so they can lower their so called tax burden.
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Smart? I hope he smarts like the rest of us who have to make up for what these titans of wealth do not pay in taxes. Tax havens, law loop holes, ad nauseum.
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
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My family owned a business. The first year they made a profit. Then they saw the tax bill. After that, my family did their best not to have any profits. Wages went up, more goods were bought, anything to avoid paying taxes on profit. Last time I checked, everyone tried to get out of paying taxes…or do you not take the deductions you are allowed?
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The system is rigged so that deductions, like carried interest, benefit the rich. Bill Gates, the 800# gorilla in Washington, joins the colony’s other rich, paying no income taxes i.e. freeloading on the middle class who pays to cover the costs of the factors of production e.g. education and transportation. Washington’s poor pay up to 7 times the tax rate that the rich do in the colony, which has the “most regressive state tax system” in the nation.
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