Posted on 05/08/2019 4:41:56 AM PDT by EyesOfTX
Today’s Campaign Update (Because The Campaign Never Ends)
Hey, y’all, Donald Trump lost a lot of money in the 1980s! – That’s the big “bomb” the news-fakers at the New York Times dropped on President Donald Trump Tuesday night, as the paper somehow got hold of a decade of Trump’s tax returns. In all, the returns show that Trump’s real estate and casino businesses lost over a billion dollars during the 10 year period.
Well, for tax purposes, that is. Anyone familiar with how the tax code works, i.e., nobody who works for the NYTimes, would know that tax losses do not necessarily reflect actual business losses. The President himself addressed this idiotic move by the Times on his Twitter account this morning:
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump · 41m Real estate developers in the 1980’s & 1990’s, more than 30 years ago, were entitled to massive write offs and depreciation which would, if one was actively building, show losses and tax losses in almost all cases. Much was non monetary. Sometimes considered “tax shelter,” ......
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump ....you would get it by building, or even buying. You always wanted to show losses for tax purposes....almost all real estate developers did - and often re-negotiate with banks, it was sport. Additionally, the very old information put out is a highly inaccurate Fake News hit job!
14.2K 5:56 AM - May 8, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy 9,674 people are talking about this
As a businessman, Donald Trump has stated repeatedly and unfailingly anytime this stupid subject has been raised by our crave fake media that he took full advantage of the U.S. tax code in the conduct of his business ventures. The demented nutjobs at the NYTimes – whose own business, by the way, also takes full advantage of the U.S. tax code – wants you to think that this means Trump is a somehow a really bad guy who was stealing from you personally.
But you know what this really makes Trump? A smart businessman.
Here’s why: Tax “write-offs” exist in the code for a reason. They exist because at some point in time the U.S. congress felt it would be advantageous to the U.S. economy to incentivize certain behaviors in the business world.
Anyone with any understanding of the history of the 1980s – which again would obviously exclude anyone working for the despicable NYTimes – would know that Ronald Reagan came into office in 1981 in the midst of a major recession created by Jimmy Carter and convinced congress to pass a major tax reform designed to boost economic growth.
The new tax code (which I understand because I was an accountant doing tax work in the 1980s) that came out of that reform effort included various incentives, like the old ACRS system of accelerated depreciation, designed to increase investment of new capital in the building and manufacturing of hard assets. You know, stuff like high rise office buildings and fancy high-rise condo developments in oh, say, Manhattan.
Like me, many of my readers live in Texas. Those of us over the age of, say, 50 will remember that the skylines of Houston and Dallas were completely transformed during the 1980s, with new high-rise buildings like the ones Donald Trump was building and buying and selling in Manhattan also being built in those cities by major developers like Trammel Crow.
See, building big buildings like that and manufacturing all manner of hard goods benefits the economy by creating … wait for it, Democrats because I know you don’t know the answer here … JOBS. Oh, and that other thing all Democrats hate with a passion, ECONOMIC GROWTH.
How did that new tax code work out for America? Well – listen closely all you economic ignoramuses in the Democrat Party and the fake news media – it created the LONGEST AND BIGGEST ECONOMIC EXPANSION IN MODERN HISTORY.
Oh, hey, guess which individual’s business empire was in a better position than anyone else in America in 1981 to take full advantage of the incentives offered by this handy new tax code?
That would be a guy named Donald John Trump.
And that’s really all there is to know about this particular stupid non-story.
That is all.
Follow me on Twitter at @GDBlackmon
Because people care 2 years into his first term about whether he REALLY made or lost money in the 80s.
The only people that will care are already voting against him.
And trying to explain tax shelters, non-cash losses, etc., would take an eternity for these nitwits.
I’m not going to pay attention to any of this media crap.
Some government employee needs to be outfitted for an orange jumpsuit for leaking in violation of the privacy laws.
I saw a hit piece in the NYT today that they got Trump’s tax transcripts, which, first of all is against the law for whoever provided them to the NYT. It claimed that he “hadn’t paid tax” and was a “bad businessman” because his casinos had NOLs of $1.1B or something. It was borderline slander. I know the media sucks, but this really was atrocious.
They know nothing of the tax law and they paint a picture of either illegality or incompetence so that people who don’t understand the tax law will think ill of Trump. Who does that serve?
*I* KNOW the tax law and I can tell you the best result for ANY business is Book Profit - Tax Loss. Every year. Consistently. It’s not easy to pull off, but that’s what you’d want to do. WANT to do. The notion that his businesses generate NOLs is bad is ridiculous.
Didn’t Amazon lose $$ for its first 15-16 years or so?
I don’t want to look at my own tax return and I’m sure not interested in Trump’s return for this year or any year.
He probably signs a hundred returns or more a year and I’m willing to bet he doesn’t look beyond the signature page.
How would it do without government subsidies?
I am not saying Trump did anything untowards tax wise but....I think the statute of limitations on tax fraud is only 3 years.
Hey I looked it up.
That’s a real book! :)
Cool.
And I worked 10 minutes walking distance from him for 20 years :)
Shows where my head was at.
Let me get this straight. The tax code was created by Congress. Trump uses it to his advantage as do most Americans. Now they want to chastise him for using the very system they created?
Got it.
The NY Times! The company that bought the Boston Globe for 1.1 billion dollars and later sold it for 70 million. Any chance they took advantage of any legal write offs ?
WOW!!!
What a return!!
I KNOW I could turn 1.1 billion into 70 million given the chance!
I don’t know much about write offs, but I would imagine there would be quite a bit to write off with such a tragic move.
That made my day :)
There’s no question why this ten year period was chosen by the liberal hacks to “disclose” Trump’s tax records (however accurate or inaccurate the “disclosures” are). This was the time of the “Savings and Loan Crisis”. The major changes in the tax laws wiped out many savings and loan associations, and the real-estate investors who borrowed from them. I know, because my wife’s once wealthy uncle was nearly wiped out then, too. Many savings and loan associations, banks, and investors were wiped out then. Only the smart ones, like Trump, survived.
If anyone in Congress gets upset over Trump’s legal use of the tax code, their response should be to join me in scrapping the entire tax code and going with a low, fixed, universal, flat tax with no deductions, credits, exclusions or exemptions - just a simple flat tax everyone pays.
I am not saying Trump did anything untowards tax wise but....I think the statute of limitations on tax fraud is only 3 years.
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On some issues it is 6 years. And there is no doubt that Trump’s operations would be complex enough to have those kinds of 6-year items involved.
Additionally, real estate has long-lived assets that appear over multiple years’ returns, such as a 30-year depreciation schedule. So a discrepancy on an item that began being depreciated in 1990 would still be around on the tax returns until 2020. That can give IRS the predicate to go back the 30 years and review the return when that item was first placed in service, since it affects returns now in the recent 6-year window.
>How would it do without government subsidies?
You misspelled “illegal, taxpayer” as govt doesn’t have a pot to p!ss in.
I believe there is no statute of limitations on Tax fraud.
I used to do taxes professionally. However, I never was good enough to do any real business returns. Small sole proprietorships, yes. Real business returns, no. I’ve argued for some time that Trump’s tax returns would be too complex, involving too many rarely used but LEGAL parts of the tax law, for most PROFESSIONALS to understand.
I doubt more than 2 people in Congress, at best, could understand his returns. Not 1 in 10,000 average folks.
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