This is a blog that is so far outside my realm of knowledge… it’s a difficult one to write. First, let me clearly state that I am absolutely NOT a tax specialist by any stretch. I’m one of those people that actually needs an accountant to help me gather my information to “give to the accountant” in order to compile our annual tax return. Piles of receipts and lines on forms with crazy ass descriptions of what the hell I’m supposed to put on those line makes my head hurt. All of that being said and hopefully understood by you, I will attempt to tackle the story that the NY Times dropped on a Sunday night.
One must first understand WHAT the story is. First of all, it’s an opinion piece. Stop with your head shaking and negativity and listen to me! The story does NOT include line by line visuals of the tax returns filed by Donald Trump over the past 20 years. It is a “analysis” of those lines written by a reporter (or reporters). YOU have not seen the numbers on the lines, you have seen their “reports” of the numbers on the lines and that is a big difference. Am I saying they are lying? Nope! I think the numbers they gave are accurate….. I think the article is shall we say… heavy on opinions though.
Most Americans don’t give 2 shits about Donald’s tax returns. You might think they do because you follow the news and you’ve seen the stories written over and over and over about how he is “the only President” in the past few decades that has NOT provided those documents for us average ordinaries to peruse. BUT… you are wrong. I’ll be honest with you…. this story is NOT as big as you might think it is or even want it to be. It’s just not. We are 40+ days from the election and this story is NOT going to move the needle in any direction no matter how much you might hope it does. There isn’t a single voter out there that woke up Monday morning and said, “Ah Ha! I knew it… his finances are wonky and I’m NOT voting for him” IF that’s what you think this story is going to result in…. you will be very disappointed.
What does the story tell us? It says he’s not as rich as he claims to be. Rich being… cash on hand… green paper bills….. enough to make it rain whenever and wherever he wants. He’s in the real estate business…… that’s a very volatile industry and values increase and decrease constantly. The property in downtown Minneapolis was worth quite a bit in January…. but by May… not so much. Not many people are looking to purchase smoldering rubble for example. So… his assets fluctuate. Got that part?
His tax bill…. well as a citizen of the US… his tax bill is based on the exact same US Treasury & IRS rules that mine is. He can take any and all deductions, losses or other avenues of reducing his tax liability that any other citizen can. Please tell me which year in the past 30, you have finished your tax return and said…. I wish I owed more. No one does. EVERY person takes advantage of every loophole, law, or regulation that they can in order to avoid making that huge payment. Why should he be any different that you or me?? If you don’t like those “loopholes” then you need to put different people in Congress because they wrote them.
Moving on…. I’m seeing alot of people saying he paid $750 in taxes. One of those idiots is named Jake Tapper. I just can’t with his nonsense. It’s like he didn’t READ the story…. imagine that??!! IF he had read the story, he would have told you that in 2016, Trump paid $1 million and in 2017, he paid $4.2 million. Those amounts were AFTER he had already paid estimates on what he owed in order to file extensions. He actually overpaid and the money was rolled forward. He made use of $9.7 million in business investment credits and qualified for a tax break from renovating the Old Post Office Hotel which qualified him for the historic preservation tax break. Since becoming the President in 2017, his salary has been $400,000. He’s donated the full amount each quarter back to the US Treasury. He’s donated $1.4 million so far.
Have any of you donated your annual salary back to the US Treasury? I’m guessing that would be a NO. I don’t point it out to give him accolades for charity, I point it out because he is a very wealthy man that doesn’t need it and has put it to good use.
Now, the debt. Those numbers are all over the place but I think the most common one I’ve seen thrown about is $400 million. Those are loans that can be called beginning next year. They can also be extended. Anyone with wealth invested in real estate such as he has…. has debt and probably as much if not more than him. This number although very large in our eyes is really not that large and if you are searching searching searching for who holds that debt… who is he beholden too?? Banks. Lots of them.
There’s not a massive amount of debt held by the Bank of Moscow or some guy named Putin that loaned him some dough. It’s held by the same banks that you or I could take out a loan from… BUT… ahhh… here we are with that reference to “Moscow”. Because let’s be honest… that’s what this ENTIRE story is REALLY about.
RUSSIA! How much money did he take in or give to ol’ Vlad in his bid to become our President. As I indicated in my Facebook post… some of ya’ll aren’t going to “like” where this story goes. Here’s where it goes…. ZERO. ZILCH. NOT A SINGLE PENNY can be tied to, related to, implied to and any other “to” you want to talk about. This entire document shows all of us ordinaries that his money isn’t rubles. But… as I said, the timing of this story and how it was “reported” bugged me. There was a missing piece here that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
There’s a story that some of you may not know about because many (too many) news outlets have ignored it for a week. It’s about Russian money being given to politicians and their families. No one would cover the story except for very few organizations and the reason is ….. the Russian money didn’t go to Trump. It went to another political candidate and IF the media did their damn job, they would have reported to you that the facts of THAT story don’t look so very good. There’s no way to FORCE the media to “cover” a story about finances… unless you give them a story (like this one).
I’ve seen numerous posts from people saying these documents were “leaked” by the SDNY because Trump just lost a case against them last week and they got their hands on them. Well, that’s possible. But do you know who has had these documents for 3 years and combed thru every single line looking for ties to foreign governments?? That would be an old geezer named Mueller. He wrote a report that every one of you can read and it concluded that there was NO MONEY moving back and forth. Do I think that’s where this came from??? NO.
All of you out there that have been waiting eagerly for his tax returns so that for God’s Sake we’ll know where that man has earned his money, what taxes he’s paid and WHO he owes money to…..well, this is it. It’s all legit. If you are outraged by how “little” he paid then you need to march that outrage on over to the halls of Congress because they made the laws that he abided by. He has a top notch team of accountants that earn their money because they made use of every single deduction and loophole out there. It’s perfectly legal. He’s paid his “fair share”. Maybe you don’t think his “share” is enough, but that’s an argument for another day and certainly another audience. Personally, I think they did a helluva job.
If you are still in a twist because YOU haven’t seen his actual tax returns… you are hanging your hopes on stupidity. There’s NOTHING incriminating in them. If your argument is WHY THE HELL won’t he end this nonsense and just give them to us to see….. it’s because he doesn’t have to. Your outrage will never be satisfied so it would be useless anyway. You’ve clung your hopes to documents that are as useless as the Hindenburg.
And…. where did these documents come from? The NY Times was played like Charlie Daniels fiddle. You know the answer to that question. The NY Times even told you… it’s in the story.
This story exploded last night and this morning. I challenge all of you to keep watching it. That ain’t gonna be an easy task though. It will disappear quicker than you might think. It’s going somewhere……..
Good day ! Wash your hands & QUIT TOUCHING YOUR FACE!
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