My household income has never reached six figures. In the last decade, our federal taxes have never been less than four figures; last year, we cracked $10K for total payments due as the price we pay for roads, weather radar, GPS satellites, federal courts to keep our state honest, national parks, and health insurance for my parents and tens of millions of other Americans. We feel we get our money’s worth.
In most years, it appears my wife and I pay more to support the greatest democracy in the world than billionaire Donald Trump does:
Donald J. Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750.
He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made [Russ Buettner, Susanne Craig, and Mike McIntire, “Long-Concealed Records Show Trump’s Chronic Losses and Years of Tax Avoidance,” New York Times, 2020.09.27].
Trump isn’t a total tax dodger. He pays plenty in taxes to the governments of other countries where, contrary to another empty promise, he has sought to expand his profits while acting (stress that word) as leader of the United States:
The Times was also able to take the fullest measure to date of the president’s income from overseas, where he holds ultimate sway over American diplomacy. When he took office, Mr. Trump said he would pursue no new foreign deals as president. Even so, in his first two years in the White House, his revenue from abroad totaled $73 million. And while much of that money was from his golf properties in Scotland and Ireland, some came from licensing deals in countries with authoritarian-leaning leaders or thorny geopolitics — for example, $3 million from the Philippines, $2.3 million from India and $1 million from Turkey.
He reported paying taxes, in turn, on a number of his overseas ventures. In 2017, the president’s $750 contribution to the operations of the U.S. government was dwarfed by the $15,598 he or his companies paid in Panama, the $145,400 in India and the $156,824 in the Philippines [Buettner, Craig, and McIntire, 2020.09.27].
Fifty years ago, back when America had a conscience, a President paying three figures in taxes on a mere six-figure salary sparked outrage:
In 1973, The Providence Journal reported that, after a charitable deduction for donating his presidential papers, Richard M. Nixon had paid $792.81 in 1970 on income of about $200,000.
The leak of Mr. Nixon’s small tax payment caused a precedent-setting uproar: Henceforth, presidents, and presidential candidates, would make their tax returns available for the American people to see.
“I would love to do that,” Mr. Trump said in 2014 when asked whether he would release his taxes if he ran for president. He’s been backpedaling ever since [Buettner, Craig, and McIntire, 2020.09.27].
Trump is supposedly worth billions. He’s definitely drawing a larger paycheck than I’ve ever seen. Yet in most years, I’ve paid more taxes as a teacher, blogger, and small-college official to support the federal government than he has.
There’s as much wrong with a tax code that lets that happen as there is with voters who pick such a cheat to run their country.
* * *
“I play to people’s fantasies,” he wrote in “Trump: The Art of the Deal.” “People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration — and a very effective form of promotion” [Buettner, Craig, and McIntire, 2020.09.27].
trump crooks and liars are just like him and that’s why they like him. Take a look at the republican crew we send to Washington and to Pierre. The sorriest bunch of selfish berstards that we could possible send, GNOem and Ravonbeak are two that really stand out. You just know all of their tax returns is interesting as well as shady. Here is a partial list of their being the same. Feel free to add.
1. Cheat on taxes then whine.. check
2. Get government handouts, then whine… double whammy check
3. Don’t want to serve in the military… double check
4. Debt and deficit spending only to get another card when their card max’s out.check
5. Racist and whine… check
6. Whiners and whine… check
7, Hate all religions except their own God (God of money of course) then whine. check
South Dakota republicans loves them some trump because he is them, fat and lazy. Take a look at our republican run state and you get the idea of one that cannot stand on it’s own two feet without corruption while being to damn lazy to change. They got to fat sucking the teat of government to plot corruption and now they know nothing else. Yes, we deserve one another because we are the same, very poor crooked business people. What a crew.
Teachers paid $7,239
Firefighters paid $5,283
Nurses paid $10,216
Donald Trump paid $750
Hey there South Dakotan’s, most of you paid more tax than the trump virus How does that make you feel?
DTrump won’t pay any taxes because he knows he can get away with it and that his conservative
christian base will ignore it. And he soon will have the iron clad protection from all three branches of “his” government…led by Mitch McConnell/Bill Barr/Amy Barrett.
Watch him throw a few olive branches just before the election….on the environment, immigration, minorities, the economy, healthcare, ect. And then just after the election he can rescind every one of them.
Revelations on President Trump’s tax data and records foretell ominous future conflicts of interest for him personally, his family and, if reelected, the United States. To whom does he owe the hundreds of millions of dollars coming due in the next few years? We do not know; we should know; for sure it compromises our national security.
it was obvious that Trump was not paying taxes-no surprise.
His upcoming debt load is the surprise, AND CONCERN!!
Who is financing him? Could it be the Russians, since he seems to be so nice to Russia, yet treats the rest of the world leaders terribly.
Conventional wisdom is that Pootie has more than pee tapes on Financial Flunkie. He’s the one probably holding the paper.
The IRS hardly ever audits the very wealthy because they are not competent enough to deal with a team of tax lawyers. Much easier to drop the hammer on the little guy and go home at night without a headache.
Scott’s comment about Trump being indebted to Russia appears to have hit the ball outta the park:
https://www.businessinsider.com/eric-trump-golf-courses-russia-funding-2017-5
I believe Jr said something similar to Eric early on as well.
bcb, on that note, it would seem it’s all about money laundering. The BBC reports just that’
“What is an unexplained wealth order?
An unexplained wealth order (UWO) is a type of order issued by a UK court to compel someone to reveal the sources of their unexplained wealth.
It was introduced to target suspected corrupt foreign officials who have potentially laundered stolen money through the UK.
The first unexplained wealth order was issued in 2018 to Zamira Hajiyeva, the wife of Jahangir Hajiyev, the former chairman of the International Bank of Azerbaijan, who spent £16m in Harrods.
The media has sometimes nicknamed UWOs “McMafia laws” – after the BBC crime drama about a Russian crime family living in London.” https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-51666413
What a deal, of course there is Russian involvement, we even saw it personally right here in South Dakota with Dirty Johnson’s green lighting of Butina, the Russian Spy. Oh, that little Red Sparrow broke some hearts here
Scott seems to have nailed it according to this news source. https://www.msnbc.com/brian-williams/watch/report-russian-mob-money-helped-build-trump-business-empire-1002228291948