Donald Trump's Very Yuge Tax Problem

[laughing dog]

You have a false understanding of the tax code. The losses he claimed was on money that was already taxed (unless he fraudulantly made up the losses, of which we have absolutely no evidence of). In essense, he paid taxes on almost a billion dollars in the distant past, lost the income, but can only recover those taxes already paid in when he has income to offset it.

You clearly have no idea what the fuck you are talking about. He paid income tax on income earned in year X, then he losses money in year X+1. The taxes paid in the previous year are based on his income in the previous year. Subsequent losses are irrelevant. It's too bad for him that he had losses. But he is not recovering taxes paid on income not earned.

 

[Axulus]

You have a false understanding of the tax code. The losses he claimed was on money that was already taxed (unless he fraudulantly made up the losses, of which we have absolutely no evidence of). In essense, he paid taxes on almost a billion dollars in the distant past, lost the income, but can only recover those taxes already paid in when he has income to offset it.

You clearly have no idea what the fuck you are talking about. He paid income tax on income earned in year X, then he losses money in year X+1. The taxes paid in the previous year are based on his income in the previous year. Subsequent losses are irrelevant. It's too bad for him that he had losses. But he is not recovering taxes paid on income not earned.

You aren't making any sense. Of course subsequent losses are relevant. The government rightly recognizes that an annual cut-off for reporting income and paying tax on that basis is arbitrary. Thus, the ability to use losses to offset past and future income is equitable if you want to tax someone based on actual business income earned over the business' history.

However, the deck is stacked in favor of the government as they don't let you immediately get a refund on past taxes paid on a loss, but make you wait until you have future income. IOW, you must pay all tax immediately in the year income is earned, but you must wait an arbitrary period of time to recover taxes on a loss.

Anyone who incurs losses can utilize this method. Your contention that it is only available to the "elite" is BS.

 

[barbos]

I don't see a problem here. If he did in fact have losses then what he did is perfectly legal and fair. Trumps $1bil loss normally means someone had a $1bil gain and paid taxes on it. Other than being crappy businessman it means nothing. I mean the guy lost $1bil and could not get it back for $18 years, this means he was earning less than $50mil per year in these 18 years, pathetic!

 

[RavenSky]

Every American pays as little taxes as legally required. To me, Trump's scandal here is that he has portrayed himself as the savior of the white working class. However, he lost close to a billion dollars in a business venture! This will be a chink in his armor.

It also shows him to be a hypocrite (again):

Watch Donald Trump Lecture Americans For Not Paying Taxes

But you know, you do have a problem because half of the people don't pay any tax... But we have 50 percent. It just hit the 50 percent mark. Fifty percent of the people are paying no tax.

He was, of course, trying to demonize the working poor and unemployed during the economic crises, but how... ironic... that it appears he is part of that supposed 50% who pay no taxes.

 

[iolo]

This is more interesting than him acting in a porno movie. However does he have a 'tax problem' if he doesn't have to pay tax for the next few years.
See what the IRS audit says if it disagrees.

I thought the only basis for his appeal to the mugs was that he was a hugely successful exploiter?

 

[TV and credit cards]

Trump's tax writeoff shows his 'genius' at business, advisers (Giuliani) say.

What a strange story to read. Only Donald Trump can fix Donald Trump in that the problem knows itself best.

In between the lines of the tax code is ambiguity that needs to be filled by one's moral code. Not everything is defined absolutely. There are ambiguous spaces/individual scenarios where we have to decide what is the right thing to do. Where do you draw this line in the clash between ethics and fiduciary duty? Well, we're talking about Donald Trump so I'm guessing just this side of prison bars.

 

[bleubird]

The point is do you want this man to have most important job on this planet.All the quibbling about tax law is just noise.He is a con man.and never should have any real power over anything. He has duped the uniformed.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Funny, Trump was whining about Solyndra in the first debate. I believe he declared a loss that was at least 4 times greater than the Federal Government's loss with Solyndra.

- - - Updated - - -

Trump's tax writeoff shows his 'genius' at business, advisers (Giuliani) say.

What a strange story to read. Only Donald Trump can fix Donald Trump in that the problem knows itself best.

But we shouldn't be electing Trump, we should be electing his accountant team.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't see a problem here. If he did in fact have losses then what he did is perfectly legal and fair. Trumps $1bil loss normally means someone had a $1bil gain and paid taxes on it. Other than being crappy businessman it means nothing. I mean the guy lost $1bil and could not get it back for $18 years, this means he was earning less than $50mil per year in these 18 years, pathetic!

I'm not certain if his losses can be counted against his gains or against his tax bill... ie he can apply $60 million against his tax bill. I could be wrong, though.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Trump's tax writeoff shows his 'genius' at business, advisers (Giuliani) say.

What a strange story to read. Only Donald Trump can fix Donald Trump in that the problem knows itself best.

In between the lines of the tax code is ambiguity that needs to be filled by one's moral code. Not everything is defined absolutely. There are ambiguous spaces/individual scenarios where we have to decide what is the right thing to do. Where do you draw this line in the clash between ethics and fiduciary duty? Well, we're talking about Donald Trump so I'm guessing just this side of prison bars.

Blind loyalty never ceases to amaze me. Then I realize there's a difference between a genius with intellect and ethics, and a clever thief. So it becomes easy to understand Trump's popularity and appeal.

 

[Sarpedon]

Does anyone think that team Trump will gain by spinning this positively?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Does anyone think that team Trump will gain by spinning this positively?

How can you spin it? Their angle seems to be that the info was stolen and shouldn't have been published. Additionally, this is just one thing on top of a large pile of 'Trump isn't good at generating wealth as much as shifting off his debt'.

 

[laughing dog]

You clearly have no idea what the fuck you are talking about. He paid income tax on income earned in year X, then he losses money in year X+1. The taxes paid in the previous year are based on his income in the previous year. Subsequent losses are irrelevant. It's too bad for him that he had losses. But he is not recovering taxes paid on income not earned.

You aren't making any sense. Of course subsequent losses are relevant. The government rightly recognizes that an annual cut-off for reporting income and paying tax on that basis is arbitrary. Thus, the ability to use losses to offset past and future income is equitable if you want to tax someone based on actual business income earned over the business' history.

I know people who have received refunds on taxes paid when they ended up with zero income for the year. So, I say you are the one making no sense.

Furthermore, the amount by which the losses exceed the income tax do not represent any income previously taxes. So allowing that amount to reduce future taxes is an effective tax subsidy.

However, the deck is stacked in favor of the government as they don't let you immediately get a refund on past taxes paid on a loss, but make you wait until you have future income. IOW, you must pay all tax immediately in the year income is earned, but you must wait an arbitrary period of time to recover taxes on a loss.

Not according to the people I know.

Anyone who incurs losses can utilize this method. Your contention that it is only available to the "elite" is BS.

If you took off your ideological blinders, it would improve your reading comprehension. This is a form of income averaging which is not permitted for most people.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Does anyone think that team Trump will gain by spinning this positively?

No, but it's not like they have much of choice except to try. They made a decision to keep the tax returns private, so instead of this coming out a year ago and spending that time defending his business practices and have it get buried and ignored under the weight of everything else that's been going on with him, it gets leaked with little dribbles coming out again and again in the weeks leading up to the election and making the worst pieces of it the central headlines in the news coverage when he's trying to change the narrative to something else.

Their attempts to try and spin it positively are coming across as utter failures, but they can't just do nothing, so they need to spend the next five weeks swallowing their bile and trying to tell everyone that this pile of shit smells like roses.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

If you took off your ideological blinders, it would improve your reading comprehension. This is a form of income averaging which is not permitted for most people.

I'm in the dark on this, so the only situation I think the typical person could potentially even use such a thing would be if they sold their home and were allowed to average out that sale over time. Does that count?

 

[ElectEngr]

It's not Trump that's a genius, it's his Accountants and Tax Attorneys...

Later,
ElectEngr

 

[barbos]

I don't see a problem here. If he did in fact have losses then what he did is perfectly legal and fair. Trumps $1bil loss normally means someone had a $1bil gain and paid taxes on it. Other than being crappy businessman it means nothing. I mean the guy lost $1bil and could not get it back for $18 years, this means he was earning less than $50mil per year in these 18 years, pathetic!

I'm not certain if his losses can be counted against his gains or against his tax bill... ie he can apply $60 million against his tax bill. I could be wrong, though.

Yes, you are wrong. Stock market would not have been possible if people were not able to do that.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I'm not certain if his losses can be counted against his gains or against his tax bill... ie he can apply $60 million against his tax bill. I could be wrong, though.

Yes, you are wrong. Stock market would not have been possible if people were not able to do that.

The typical person would be ruined if the market crashed on them. They wouldn't be able to make up from the hurt by pushing the losses against their taxable income for the next decade.

 

[Treedbear]

Yes, you are wrong. Stock market would not have been possible if people were not able to do that.

The typical person would be ruined if the market crashed on them. They wouldn't be able to make up from the hurt by pushing the losses against their taxable income for the next decade.

From my experience the average person can only deduct $2000 per year in capital losses from investments. But real estate or a business might be different.

ETA: What I meant was you can only carry over $2000 per year to subsequent years. Still, it doesn't seem fair.

ETA: Oops. That should be $3000 per year.

 

[Tristan Scott]

The problem isn't that Trump didn't pay taxes, the problem is that this illustrates that Trump is the beneficiary of the very system that his followers believe is unfair. Now they will be told that since Trump knows how to game the system better than anyone he will be the one who can fix it. Their little heads will bobble and they will all cheer.

 

[dismal]

There are very few subjects where I agree with you, but this is one of them. Based on his known history (as posted in a separate thread), I think this is exactly what we are looking at.

The tax code encourages people to post big losses and then rewards them for doing so. That's fucked up.

Yes, the true path to prosperity is losing tons of money so you can write off 35 cents on the dollar of it on your taxes.