QUICK TAKE: Why the NY Times Trump Tax Hit Job Is A Lot Fake News

TG ^ | 9/28/2020 | Evan

[wrrock]

The NY Times story on Trump's taxes is a giant mischaracterization to anyone with a basic understanding of the business/corporate finance. Here is a quick take of questionable items in their story.

NY Times Uses "Tax Return Data" & Not "Tax Returns"
When the NY Times talks about acquiring Trump's 'taxes,' they are careful to use the word 'data. and not 'returns.'

Quote:
"The New York Times has obtained tax-return data"
"The tax data examined by The Times"
"The Times examined and analyzed the data"

Everyone is assuming the NY Times has the full tax returns. But the way words are carefully used in the NY Times article makes this assumption suspect. First, the NY Times outright says they have three pages of tax returns from 1995 (acquired in 2016), that was mailed to the anonymously. If they had access to decades of Trump's tax returns, they most likely would say they have 'tax returns' instead of using the phrase 'tax return data.'

It's suspect they have the full returns. They may have a tax record of some sort for the year, but not certified returns. And that distinction can be important.

Assuming the have a tax transcript from he IRS, it doesn’t provide enough data for some of their conclusions. The NY Times has to make a lot of assumptions. The article makes some big assumptions as they interpret this data. Some of these assumptions are either misleading, not provable or flat out wrong.

Excerpt - See the list 5 other questionable things with the NY TIMES hit job....

[euram]

I don’t care if Trump paid ZERO in taxes. I didn’t care in 2016 and don’t care in 2020. It just shows how the Media/Dem Party is running out of ammo that they are now circling back to his taxes. How’d that work out for them in 2016?

[PMAS]

Unnamed sources, no corroborating documents - yawn

[redshawk]

I try my best to not pay taxes too. Legally of course. Every business does.

[Williams]

I read the article and it contained no statements of wrongdoing, and a lot of their own assumptions like “Trump may have run for President in 2016 to improve his brand” Really?

And that Trump “may face financial pressure in the next few years”. OK

Also that he received money from “foreign sources” but not Russia. So what?

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

I always say about rich people that if their accountants can’t legally make them appear as close to broke as they can on paper, they need to be replaced. They’re not doing it right.

[TiGuy22]

I’d fire the senior managers at the IRS, today!

[Dead Corpse]

"Trust us! This looks like a lot of nothing... But this should prove conclusively that Orange Man Bad^TM just like we've been trying to get you to believe all along."

These idiots are shameless.

[Bratch]

New York Times Fails at Outlining President Trump’s Taxes Again…

Posted on September 27, 2020 by sundance

Once again the New York Times attempts to make an issue out of President Trump’s real estate holdings working as a tax shelter and reducing income taxes.

In the article the Times completely obfuscates the way income taxes are strategically offset by depreciation, mortgage interest and the entire reason why real estate ownership is viewed as a business.

John Carney writing for Breitbart gets it:

[…] So imagine our guy took out an $8 million mortgage at five percent, paying $2 million cash. Now he’s got to pay $400,000 in mortgage payments. He wants to make at least that much so he charges tenants an aggregate of $425,000, which after upkeep comes out to $410,000 of net income. (Remember, if the bank didn’t think he could make more in rent than the mortgage payment, it probably wouldn’t have lent him the money.) The interest payment on the loan–let’s call it $390,000–is deductible from his income, leaving him with $20,000 in net income. He gets to keep that and pay no taxes on it, however, because he still gets to apply the $370,000 depreciation charge. He tells the IRS he lost $350,000.

Under our tax code, ordinary business expenses can be deducted in the year they are incurred. But when a business pays for a long-lasting item expected to produce income–like machinery, vehicles, or an apartment building–it is considered a capital investment. Instead of getting to write-off the cost all at once, the business is required to write it off over the course of decades. After the 1986 tax code, this was set at 27.5 years for residential real estate. (more)

Anyone who has ever operated a business knows that offsetting income is one of the primary reasons to be self-employed.  Additionally, the Times completely skips over the tens-of-millions in payroll taxes paid by the Trump organization and tens-of-millions in property and sales taxes paid by all of the various Trump properties.

In the commercial real estate market it is common sense to offset income tax liabilities with a host of valid annual expenses, long-term capital depreciation and mortgage interest payments. With over 500 individual business entities within the Trump organization the ability to offset income in one asset with expenses in another is simply good accounting.

Additionally, President Trump donates his $400,000 government salary back to the U.S. government.  So to accuse President Trump of only paying $750 in income taxes totally ignores all of the other donations and tax payments he makes.

In practical terms no President before Trump has ever had his actual business portfolio so deeply connected to the success of the American economy.   It doesn’t cost the American taxpayer a dime to have President Trump in office…. Now let’s figure out how DC politicians making $200k/yr are able to become multi-millionaires while holding office.

Anyone?

[unixfox]

I’d fire the senior managers at the IRS, today!

DEFUND THE IRS!

[Wilhelm Tell]

The story is to try and turn any low information, undecided voters. Any real facts are unlikely to register with them.

[Vaduz]

NYT try to pimp fake story and act like the IRS didn’t know what was going on words are carefully used indeed.
Never hear any stories how so many democrat hacks become so rich so fast in D.C.
How many stories have they done on democrats tax returns.

[ConservativeInPA]

"A lot" like fake news? Can't they do a little better than that? 5 other "questionable" things? Can't they do a little bit better than that? As I used to tell my children when they were young, use your words.

Why does it seem that only leftists are able to find indignation in the slightest things and fully express, however falsely, with a wide range of vocabulary that is absolutely blunt and descriptive?

[Magnatron]

I’d rather vote for someone who didn’t pay their taxes than someone who has lived off of others taxes for 47 years...

[mad_as_he$$]

Sometime ago I was the executor of the estate of a deceased friend. His primary holdings were in a real estate development and apartment ownership company. I can find my way around a P&L and a balance sheet for most businesses. This company had incomprehensible tax returns(to me). I hired a CPA to review the returns and his conclusion was that they were all legit and right down the middle on legality under tax law. Real estate at the scale that Trump operates is it's own kind of complicated tax situation.

BTW my deceased friends business hadn't paid much in taxes for 10 years - totally legit due to depreciation and amortization and the way operating costs are structured.

[daler]

“The story is to try and turn any low information, undecided voters.”

And if today’s Rasmussen Dauly Tracking Poll is accurate, mission accomplished.

Interesting how much more coverage and traction this unsubstantiated hit piece is getting than the almost-ignored fact that the president takes no salary.

[ridesthemiles]

BTW:

The IRS sets the depreciation scales...

So many years for this kind of building-—
So many years for that kind of building..
So long for a desk—so long for carpets, etc.

There are 3 kinds of calculations for Depreciation:

Straight line
Double declining
Units of production ( for machinery)

IF these fools could get a quick primer from a CPA, perhaps they could learn something.

There also is a mountain of difference between Net worth ...Taxes owed on income, and Asset values/Liabilities.

Tired of hearing from amateurs about how accounting works.