Trump's Tax Filings Do Not Reveal What Democrats Had Hoped For
Lots of pages have been filled with rumors about President Trump's income tax filings. The Democrats had hoped that they would reveal criminal behavior or at least prove that Russia had illegitimate influence over him:
Trump says his tax returns reveal nothing that is not already disclosed on his official candidate financial disclosure, called Form 278e. As ethics counsels to the past two presidents, we dealt with both their tax filings and their Form 278's and so we know that Trump is wrong. His tax filings have an enormous amount of additional information which, in this case, could be critically important to determining whether his business overseas might affect his decision-making as president. That is because Trump’s 12,000-page tax return may tell us a great deal about his Russian and other foreign business ties that is not on his 104-page campaign financial disclosure. It’s now more vital than ever that we get that information in light of Trump's embrace of Russian hacking, leaking and interference in our election.
Now the New York Times has obtained Trump's tax filings. It has made a huge splash out of them.
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The story starts with this:
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.
However, down in paragraph 78(!) it reports:
Mr. Trump was periodically required to pay a parallel income tax called the alternative minimum tax, created as a tripwire to prevent wealthy people from using huge deductions, including business losses, to entirely wipe out their tax liabilities.Mr. Trump paid alternative minimum tax in seven years between 2000 and 2017 — a total of $24.3 million, excluding refunds he received after filing.
Reading the details of the 11,000(!) words story one finds that it is largely a bummer for the 'resistance', not so much for Trump.
It essentially says:
- Trump is a quite rich international real estate investor.
- U.S. tax laws allow investors to minimize their reported income by claiming various kinds of deprecations and other gimmicks.
- Tax regulations that allows investors to carry forward leftover losses to reduce taxes in future years are especially helpful.
- Trump has good accountants and tax lawyers and has used the laws to their full extent to minimize his tax payments.
Is any of the above something we did not already knew?
What the Times story does NOT say is:
- Trump's tax record reveal that he did something illegal.
The paper had surely hoped for more. It must have been especially bitter for its authors to write this paragraph:
By their very nature, the filings will leave many questions unanswered, many questioners unfulfilled. They comprise information that Mr. Trump has disclosed to the I.R.S., not the findings of an independent financial examination. They report that Mr. Trump owns hundreds of millions of dollars in valuable assets, but they do not reveal his true wealth. Nor do they reveal any previously unreported connections to Russia.
This is a dud. It is certainly not the campaign ammunition the Democrats had hoped for.
Posted by b on September 28, 2020 at 11:31 UTC | Permalink
next page »Well, the big Q is - what sets him aside form others presidents - they disclosed - what makes him different ??????????
I look forward to the father, or son, Sulzberger to be charged similarly as Julian Assange. Preferably with even more charges. At least Chelsea Manning was a whistle blower. The NY Times' informant was operating on purely political motives. I know it falls under things that will never happen.
Jinn: Totally agree. Trump is the necessary villain for the American Color Flag Revolution.
Posted by: Old and Grumpy | Sep 28 2020 12:20 utc | 3
Guess how surprised I'm not that Trump, a reputed billionaire, conducted his business affairs in such a way as to minimise his tax obligations - just like EVERY Billionaire on the planet?
This pro-billionaire tax regime is central to the Neo-Liberal agenda of the 1970s. If anyone has the patience to troll through the tax scales of the 1950s and 1960s, in AmeriKKKa and the Rest Of The West, and compare the top bracket numbers therein to 21st Century tax scales it'll become VERY obvious that the most lucrative investment a Rich Person can make is to BUY as many "legislators" aka Politicians, as possible.
I recall that The Beatles became non-British to side-step Britain's Supertax, which obliged Brits with huge incomes to pay 99% tax on income in excess of (x) Million Pounds per year.
Allowing Rich folks, or anyone else, to bribe politicians should become, and remain, a crime punishable by death AND confiscation.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Sep 28 2020 12:32 utc | 4
Like UNZ Review, MofA is defending Trump from a "Color Revolution" apparently. Historians fifty years from now will look back at this period and wonder how a website that came into existence opposing the war on terror could easily mutate into the leftwing of Fox News.
Posted by: Louis N Proyect | Sep 28 2020 12:38 utc | 5
here is a different take.. on the same subject..
what the tax return of Tycoon Trump reveals to me is the one sided, unfair and unfit for democracy the tax law, the misfits elected to the USA have imposed against the governed American people they are supposed to represent for the benefit of the Federal Reserve.. and wall street. 90% of the balance sheet of the markets is not created by rule of law.. take away the law, and none of the big guys on Wall Street would have a dime..
Posted by: snake | Sep 28 2020 12:46 utc | 6
Surprise, surprise! See Sgt Carter, I told you Trump was allowed to take those deductions!
Posted by: morongobill | Sep 28 2020 13:04 utc | 8
Whether Trump did anything illegal or not isn’t clear. One strategy the NYT talks about is Trump funneling money to his children to duck taxes. So Ivanka worked directly for the company but then also took a big consulting fee which Trump wrote off his taxes. The Times notes such arrangements have been prosecuted before. Hasn’t Ivanka been on a personal responsibility and hard work kick lately for millions who’ve lost jobs this year? What a joke!
What is clear is that analysis by B totally glosses over the national security risk of this. Trump owes hundreds of millions of dollars (personally, not his company) to foreign lenders due in the next few years. Money he doesn't have and can't pay. If anyone in the world but Trump were president, Trump would not even be able to get a security clearance because that's such insane leverage foreign actors have over him.
Yes, real estate investors are able to write off expenses and get losses taken care of care of. Yes, rich people work to pay less tax. The capital class can do that and labor/working class can’t. I'm surprised no one is talking about how Trump and GOP loaded up the 2017 tax cut bill with sweeteners for real estate guys like himself. Dave Dayen has: https://prospect.org/api/amp/economy/private-equity-looting-r-us/?__twitter_impression=true
The fact that Trump GOT the $72 million refund in 2009 before the IRS figured out how insane that was illustrates the problem of the system created by both the paradigm of Ronald Reagan beginning in 1981 and the Dems operating within it.
And you’re wrong that this won’t have an effect. Trump’s bade doesn’t care. But independent voters do care. All public polling this year has shown Trump has lost support with non-college educated voters, seniors (no doubt due to a terrible COVID-19 response), and suburban voters especially suburban white women who have been fleeing to the Democrats since 2017.
Biden's call to eliminate step up in basis (see here: https://prospect.org/api/amp/power/david-koch-s-heirs-will-enjoy-biggest-tax-loophole-nobody-talks/?__twitter_impression=true ) would be one of the most consequential wealth taxs in the history of the U.S.A. his campaign has already started running ads showing how much working class people pay in federal income tax.
Posted by: Faazzla | Sep 28 2020 13:11 utc | 9
It is certainly not a secret that rich people, in America, pay little to no tax from their personal wealth. That honor is reserved for the peasantry, who have little to no personal wealth at all.
Well, b, NPR is selling this tax revelation as - guess what - a clear demonstration that the Strumpet is NOT the very wealthy, therefore not the successful, businessman that he claimed and claims...
One might have thought that they would raise doubts about those "losses" enabling his not having to pay taxes, or to pay much reduced ones...But no - they are clearly taking the 2016 tack, again, that he was anything but a wily, successful, very rich businessman. That his campaigning on being such a success at business was all a snow job...
They talk as though only paying minute sums in taxes is utterly unusual for rapacious, multi-million-billionaires. That obviously he hasn't the $$$ or the IRS would have taken him to the cleaners. I doubt that Bezos/Gates/Saban/Adelson et al pay anything approaching the sums they would were they not the Mammon worshiping greed-soaked arses that they are. That's why they employ these very expensive accountants, why they line the pockets of DC denizens, to ensure that they do not have to stump up anything close to what they would have back in 1950.
NPR really doesn't respect the intelligence of its audience; or it knows that most are of the anyone but variety (well, not anyone: must be Biden, which means will be Harris).
Doubtless they will also (and won't we all be shocked!) find Russia lurking in the wording of the tax records, somehow, somewhere...
Meanwhile, Congress - i.e. the Janus Party - can continue to ignore the ever increasing need of tens of millions of Americans for food and housing security and very low cost/free at point of service health care. As well as always finding inconceivable sums of moolah for the MIC on a yearly basis in order to satisfy the clearly deep desire of the US ruling elites (among whom many in Congress belong) to destroy other peoples, societies, ways of life in order to ensure, to demonstrate our self-decided right to rule the world...
Posted by: Anne | Sep 28 2020 13:17 utc | 11
Louis N [email protected] Moon of Alabama is no more left wing than you are. Also, you who advocated the extermination of the Alawis in order to destroy a more or less secular national state so that Islamic State, al Qaeda, etc. could set up confessional statelets, are to the right of Moon of Alabama on your best days.
As to this post, Trump has either been a gigantic liar about being a successful businessman, which means the poster endorses such flagrant dishonesty. Or, Trump has been successful and has simply falsified his tax reports, genuine crimes, escaping prosecution because of the IRS being underfunded precisely so that it can't trap rich scofflaws, or simply because of political connections. This likelihood is of course unthinkable to the original post. The real thrust of the OP is that, it's all legal. This is cheap cynicism, not realism. Quite aside from the simple, unpalatable fact that what is legal is not necessarily right, the true corruption of a system is measured by what is legal but immoral. The thing about this, what makes the OP just more Trumpery, is that what the Bidens did, what the FISA court did, what the Clintons did, is no more illegal than what Trump has admitted to. The double standard doesn't excuse Trump, it merely indicts the post.
Posted by: steven t johnson | Sep 28 2020 13:25 utc | 12
Old and Grumpy @3 wrote:
Trump is the necessary villain for the American Color Flag Revolution
____________________________________________
So your theory is that they are working hard to get trump reelected so that they can depose him?
If the goal was to depose trump wouldn't it just be easier to make Biden win?
Posted by: jinn | Sep 28 2020 13:43 utc | 13
I have not read Proyect's specific statement of that, although a good chunk of the left on Syria found ways of supporting Islamist reaction and CIA-backed forces by passing it off as the Arab Spring.
I do remember a mainstream journalist in the British press some years back noting that Syrian Christians tended to back Assad because of fear of the Sharia state on offer by the other side. His or her response to this was that the Christians should get with the programme and abandon Assad, or on their heads be it...
Posted by: Waldorf | Sep 28 2020 14:05 utc | 14
"..The real thrust of the OP is that, it's all legal. This is cheap cynicism, not realism." @12
It is simply a fact. These tax strategies are, generally, 'legal.' And they are so because the legislature is controlled by wealth determined to protect itself from the populace.
That is the real story of these tax returns-not that Trump is a rogue businessman, an unusual example of wealth combined with social irresponsibility, but that he is a typical member of his class which is in the business of stealing wealth from the people and refusing to share it with government.
To point these things out is not to defend Trump, as Johnson suggests, but to indict a class: Capitalism is immoral. Not, in the narrow sense, illegal, but wrong.
The New York Times, by the way appears to be owned by foreigners including the Mexican tycoon Slim whose fortune is founded on the privatisation of telecommunications, whether this means that the newspaper is a 'security risk' is doubtful, like the idea ([email protected]) that Trump is unusual in that he borrows from 'foreign' sources it is really irrelevant. The biggest security risks in the USA are those with the highest security clearance.
Grown-ups will realise that nothing is gained by insisting that Trump is uniquely or even unusually immoral, he is a fairly typical representative of a class which has been ruling the USA for most of its history- the differences between him and Biden, Clinton or Obama are merely superficial. And those who insist otherwise, supporting the Democrats in the Presidential election are clearly insisting that the grip of the ruling class on power should not be disturbed.
What 'b' is pointing out are hard truths. It is a matter of interest that no politician in the USA has played a more prominent part in preserving and extending tax evasion regimes than the long time Senator from Delaware, whose entire career has been underwritten by the sleaziest elements of the Financial industry.
Posted by: bevin | Sep 28 2020 14:08 utc | 15
And what wrote the NYT on Biden? Little, just that a panel could not find evidence that Joe was not directly involved in his son Hunter's wheeling and dealing in Ukraine and PR China. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/23/us/elections/a-republican-inquiry-into-hunter-biden-and-ukraine-finds-no-evidence-of-wrongdoing-by-his-father.html
Zero mention of the new docu. on Biden's Chinese financiers called "Riding the Dragon", free viewable on Youtube (41 min): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRmlcEBAiIs
Posted by: Antonym | Sep 28 2020 14:15 utc | 16
Any thinking person knew that Trump's tax returns would not disclose anything illegal. After all, the returns were not "secret" to the IRS, and had there been anything illegal to disclose, I'm sure all the potential leakers in the IRS knew they'd be taken care of for life by the Dems if they leaked it. However, nothing illegal means no reward, and no potential protection as a "whistleblower," so the fact that nothing was leaked over these last few years made it clear there was no there there.
The reason for the resistance to disclosing was mainly an ego thing for Trump, because of course to minimize taxes--like every single millionaire and billionaire in the US does--means maximizing losses, and the tax man is the only one a rich businessman ever wants to brag about his losses and failures to. But of course this will be blown entirely out of proportion for as long as possible, especially since it can serve as a distraction from the mind-boggling enrichment and influence schemes the Dims (and particularly Biden & Son) were neck deep in throughout Eastern Europe and China.
Posted by: J Swift | Sep 28 2020 14:18 utc | 17
@13 jinn
The concept that the Democrats would be more happy in #2 position than actually winning the election doesn't require any coordinated conspiracy to give it substance.
The Democrats have a great job. They make money from the insider trading that Congress retained as legal for itself (speaking of things that are "legal" versus "wrong"), as well as corporate sponsorship.
If they don't control the Houses then they don't have to attempt to advance an agenda. They don't have to explain to their traditional supporters why they no longer represent any part of their traditional platform, why they are simply corporate shills with no philosophy anmymore. They don't have to do things to help the people or the nation, they can just blame the Republicans and wring their hands.
It's a sweet gig for them. No one really would have to explain to any of them, individually or combined, that they will have to step up their narrative if they get in the driver's seat. They make easier money as complicit second-raters following along with the corporate agenda driven by the Republicans.
They are the straight man for the comedian, and it pays well. May the circus continue to sell tickets for another season, is the only prayer on the Hill.
If I had lied my way onto a seat in the house, I would understand all that without being told.
Posted by: Grieved | Sep 28 2020 14:30 utc | 18
Is the US actually a country? is it a nation at all or is just a conglomerate of business interests hiding as a country?
Well some obscure US president characterised Russia as a Gas station with nuclear powers, I will characterise the US as an asylum for the insane, infested with brain damage and abundant covid-19 as a hell-hole, where the lunatics in this world chose to congregate.
Now they have about 7500 nuclear warheads, so war is a no-go, but maybe the covid 19 is the solution...
Posted by: Den lille Abe | Sep 28 2020 14:43 utc | 19
Frankly, this is the most boring thing you could have written about, b, except for more Covfefevirus stuff. Whether Trump "wins" or "loses" - and the selection of a corrupt, senile, war criminal sleazeball to stand against him suggests that he's been chosen to win - his so called tax returns won't have a damn thing to do with it. Those who are convinced he's a tax cheat Russian agent will stay convinced. Those who imagine he's god's anointed protector of the zionist entity and (a distant second to such people) America will stay convinced. Nobody will even read that article beyond the first ten lines. And the authors undoubtedly knew that.
Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Sep 28 2020 14:45 utc | 20
Trump certainly had nothing to do with Russia, and probably didn't do anything illegal.
However, it is clear he's not a "deplorable" either; he's a born and bred American oligarch.
The NYT also shoots itself on the foot, because, if it somehow insists on this, it will do more harm to the American Empire's image than to Trump; it will expose even more the Empire's regressive and utterly unfair taxation system. It will expose the Democrat elite as much as it will expose the Republican elite.
@5 Louis Proyect.
That's rich coming from someone who calls Kevork Almassian a "fascist" and denies the jihadi headchoppers controlled the invasion of Syria from the beginning.
Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Sep 28 2020 14:51 utc | 22
Thanks to b, and to Grieved for an acceptable alternative to the mainstream narrative of two candidates eager to defeat one another, two parties also. Back in the day we thought the Republican Party was doomed; but then we saw that the Democratic Party extended lifelines by behaving as badly and worse, in order to keep that party from taking its place in history. Like corporations, parties are immortal. Especially when, like corporations, they have sent out tendrils into every aspect of functioning democracy. The question is, how to cut back or unwind those tendrils? It doesn't seem possible in the forseeable future, but if enough ordinary people start to work on it, perhaps it can be done.
There are such vines in my garden. They loop around every productive plant or shrub. But today the signs of winter are visibly increasing, and they will die. The time for parties may be coming to a close - with the financial largesse they are accustomed to fizzling out as the nothingburger it will prove to be.
Then we can compost them both.
Posted by: juliania | Sep 28 2020 14:55 utc | 23
This is a dud my ass! Trump looked real uncomfortable at yesterday's presser, and quickly moved to pick friendly reporters to avoid the tax topic.
I mistakenly posted the following on the wrong thread; I thought I was posting on the Open Thread, but since Trump's troubles got their own thread, here goes.:
Imagine Trump out of a job and owing $300,000,000 to foreign lenders including Russians???Boy, I'm glad I'm not in those shoes! Must hurt to be tied up with that train barreling down the tracks!
*****
Trump's demoted ex campaign manager, Brad Parscale, was forcibly hospitalized after he tried to harm himself with one of his multiple firearms.That's what I call typical cult behaviour when you fall out of favor with the cult guru. Trump's like the Jim Jones of politics.
One can only hope Parscale's affliction spreads among the rest of Trump's looneytunes base.
This together with Trump's tax scam and con on the American people exposed suggests there's hope after all that the Fall of Trump is inching closer.
Imagine Trump spending $70,000 on 10 thin blond-dyed strands when he's got so much debt pending?
I wonder if the butcher MBS lent him money? HA! Partners in crime! He's so dirty.
Hey, but what's good for Russia, Israel and Saudi Arabia is good for the rest of the world i.e. 200,000+ dead Americans' families grieving their unnecessary deaths, millions unemployed, dissenters for rights crushed by martial oppression; usurping the judiciary; increasingly wielding fascist tools to cling to power and on the foreign front to hell with his hostile meddling against Palestine, Iran, China and Venezuela as long as Putin, Yahoo and MBS are happy. Keep trying to put lipstick on this pig!
Can't wait for Trump's messy free fall.
Posted by: Circe | Sep 28 2020 15:01 utc | 24
Hehe maybe the US is having its own moment of truth?
Back in 1972 (as I recall) a Danish lawyer appeared on national TV and showed his tax card (Then we issued such cards) witch showed a tax rate of 0 (zero), Glistrup was a multi millionaire at the time, but he honestly believed the system was wrong. Needless to say his appearance was shattering, (google it) and ultimately forced down the government and created havoc.
Ultimately for Mogens Glistrup it became his personal ruin, financially and ultimately health-wise, he did get elected to the Danish " Folketinget" and had a seat for several years.
This was a man that by the levels of time was very, very wealthy and he was brought down entirely, to the bitter end.
If you want to fight the system you must harden yourself!
Be like the Bolsheviks, show no mercy!
Be like the Nationalsocialists, show no mercy!
Be Like the Khmer Rouge, show no mercy!
Your enemy will show no mercy on you!
Posted by: Den lille Abe | Sep 28 2020 15:09 utc | 25
Would put it in the open thread, but, on a second thought, it is more related to this one:
This confirms the dialectical materialist conception of information, which, in a class-based society, always manifests itself in the synthetic form of propaganda.
There's an old saying that states "you can fool some people for a long time or you can fool many people for a short time, but you can't fool a lot of people for a long time".
That saying is wrong: in a society divided by class, you can fool a lot of people for a very long time - as long as it is politically expedient to this group's class interests. People will conscientiously believe in a lie if that lie is materially sustainable and it benefits them (individually and, on a social level, as a class). Adults can and do lie to advance their own interests, daily: they lie to their kids, they lie to their spouses, they lie to their bosses, they lie to their colleagues. And they only tell the truth when it convenes them - this is what separates the children (who can't lie, at the risk of ultimate punishment from their parents) and adults (who live in the public sphere, therefore a world without rules). That's the dialectic of information and reason: it is always politics; if you consider yourself non-ideological or non-political, you are being ideological and political.
[email protected] is wrong. The original post is not an indictment of the capitalist class and its tax privileges. It is a defense of Trump, anchored entirely on the claim the expose is another nothingburger, because, legal. Again, on the face of it, either Trump has been a liar about being a success, over and over again, yet the OP endorses this. Or, Trump falsified his tax reports, a criminal act. The conclusion is that it's not an indictment of capitalism but yet another failure of the Democrats, who are losers. The implication is Trump isn't.
Personally, I'm not ever going to vote against Trump, because there is no such thing as voting against. There's only voting for. I am opposed to everything Biden stands for, so I can't honestly vote for him. For those who want to talk about Trump the fascist? The Democratic Party does not oppose Trump for being a fascist, but for being insufficiently anti-Russian! That's official, that's why they impeached him. Pretending they are the peaceful version of Antifa is lie. What the OP has against the Democratic Party is that they're incompetents who've lied about Trump!
Posted by: steven t johnson | Sep 28 2020 15:32 utc | 27
Sorry, PS on "color revolutions." The essential first step to color revolutions is, making the claim the elections were rigged. The person doing that---before it happens!---is Trump. Everyone who babbles about color revolutions against Trump are calling black, white. It is about as likely that Tikhanovskaya actually won in Belarus, than Trump winning the vote now. Lurking behind all this is the continued lying about how Trump actually "won." Sorry, people, the belief that the letter of the law is right, is another version of "might makes right." This doctrine is suitable only for moral imbeciles.
Posted by: steven t johnson | Sep 28 2020 15:38 utc | 28
Most wealthy people game the system to pay as little tax as possible - they hire expensive lawyers who help them do this without it even being illegal. Trump is no exception. If he is unethical he is part of an entire system that is.
Posted by: Waldorf | Sep 28 2020 15:42 utc | 29
I'm not sure why the Gov't make us pay taxes any more anyway, it's been clear for a long time they don't rely on our taxes to pay for anything, they have lots of better ways to get cash when they need it.
Posted by: Bemildred | Sep 28 2020 15:45 utc | 30
The saying mentioned by vk is irrelevant in contested elections, even if true - while you can't fool all the people all the time, you don't need to do that - you need to fool enough to win an election.
Posted by: Waldorf | Sep 28 2020 15:46 utc | 31
Imagine Trump out of a job and owing $300,000,000 to foreign lenders including Russians???
Boy, I'm glad I'm not in those shoes! Must hurt to be tied up with that train barreling down the tracks!
by: Circe 24 <= In a $300,000,000 bankruptcy, the bankrupt reduces its debtor debt by 90%; walks away judgement proof, pockets $270,000,000 in assets the debts purchased <==not a bad profit for a year of court officiated shenanigans.. I would say Trump's post Warrior business should be bankruptcy. he will make out like a .....?
Posted by: snake | Sep 28 2020 16:00 utc | 32
@Faazzla What is clear is that analysis by B totally glosses over the national security risk of this. Trump owes hundreds of millions of dollars (personally, not his company) to foreign lenders due in the next few years. Money he doesn't have and can't pay. If anyone in the world but Trump were president, Trump would not even be able to get a security clearance because that's such insane leverage foreign actors have over him.
Trump has taken up loans to buy and renovate real estates. The estates are valuable assets. When the loans are due they will get rolled over into new ones. That might even be profitable for Trump as interest rates are now lower than those he pays on his old loans.
People re-finance their moregages all the time.
@Waldorf Most wealthy people game the system to pay as little tax as possible - they hire expensive lawyers who help them do this without it even being illegal. Trump is no exception. If he is unethical he is part of an entire system that is.
Yep.
Wasn't it less than a week ago you ran a story about deceiving with headlines b? Yet here you are committing the exact same act. It isn't the Democrats that have been seeking the tax records it is the state of NY. They have been seeking them because they have multiple cases open over financial irregularities in Trump land.
They are looking into whether "individual one" who is a co-conspirator in a case committed tax fraud when paying bribes to porn stars. That case will move forward at the Federal level as well as soon as DJT is no longer president.
They are also looking at whether the Trump clan committed massive violations of bank fraud, tax fraud and wire fraud by over valuating and then under valuating assets both at the same time.
They are looking at whether the Trump clan is involved in money laundering for sanctioned entities. Whether DJT has committed violations of the emoluments act.
You can't say nothing has been found because the states that have been seeking these records don't have them yet. That may change on Tuesday but it will then take time for the auditors to go through them. On top of that we don't know what all the NYT has found because they haven't released it all yet.
You have a pretty good site here until you slip into hyper partisan Info Wars mode and then you just look ridiculous b.
Posted by: BraveNewWorld | Sep 28 2020 16:46 utc | 34
There's so much attempted whitewashing of Trump happening here the bleach fumes are offensive to any breath of fresh air. And to simply try to whitewash the cheating scoundrel when you know how dirty he is and what a lying fraud he is pretending he's a friend of the working class and what an upper crust loser he is...how low can you stoop?
And no one on this site including the host has effectively explained how Trump being good for Israel, Russia and Saudi Arabia outweighs swindling Palestine of the West Bank, attempting regime change in Venezuela, multiple acts of war to provoke and destroy Iran and initiating Cold War with China.
That's cause many of you here are a bunch of hypocritical, deceptive Trump bootlickers who won't touch that argument, that's really a foolproof bullshet meter test, with a ten foot pole.
Come on, I dare ya! I'm calling you out.
Posted by: Circe | Sep 28 2020 16:56 utc | 35
@34 b's headline looks accurate to me. He doesn't say the democrats have been seeking the tax records. Simply that they will be disappointed by the recent revelation.
Posted by: dh | Sep 28 2020 16:56 utc | 36
Posted by: BraveNewWorld | Sep 28 2020 16:46 utc | 34
There is nothing wrong with B's subject line, the Democrats are indeed calling for the returns to be released, for some reason NYT chose to just "summarize" them, so I assume there are some things in the returns that NYT doesn't want us thinking about.
Posted by: Bemildred | Sep 28 2020 17:00 utc | 37
@Louis N Proyect
50 years from now no one will look back at how you became a "socialist" apologist for human organ eaters, jihadists and Al Qaeda in Syria. Stick to film reviews. It's your one strength.
Posted by: ProfK | Sep 28 2020 17:01 utc | 38
If this is a nothing burger then why did Trump work so hard to keep his tax records secret?
Yes, it is reflective of a system that is totally legal but unethical.
Paying attention to this instead of the financial rape of the US Treasury that is going on behind the circus front of these sorts of things does reflect poorly on b's choice of subjects to write about but we were never promised serious evolution when we walked into the MoA bar........
Posted by: psychohistorian | Sep 28 2020 17:06 utc | 39
You known, Trump can clear himself with the American people and remove all doubt just like that, simply by releasing the last 10 years of his tax returns. But noooh...he's hiding behind the eternal fake excuse; audit.
But we all know he's an entitled, privileged, cheating scoundrel and loser who took the 300 million he inherited from his daddy and turned it into debt!
He's dirty, yeah, but he's contesting release all the way to the Supreme Court. So how dirty is he to go to such lengths?
Posted by: Circe | Sep 28 2020 17:12 utc | 40
Funny (not) how the review of Trump's tax returns generates more heat than light.
Yet the light is very revealing.
Trump is in a financial jam. In 2015 his big money-maker, 'The Apprentice' franchise, was ending or would soon end and his tax returns indicate that his other businesses were not doing well.
Trump has hundreds of millions of dollars of loans coming due in the early 2020's. And he's personally guaranteed some portion of those loans.
While Trump might be able to refinance most of the loans coming due, it's possible (if not likely), that he will have to pay out some portion of the money due. And his tax dispute might mean that he has to pay out millions, if not tens of millions, more.
If Trump were truly a billionaire, he might be able to weather the storm. But many financial analysts in 2016 questioned his "billionaire" status.
Trump’s No Billionaire. He’s a Bullshit Artist. And Soon, We’ll Have the Taxes to Prove It.
He pretended he was too rich to be bought. Now we know that he’d chase a dollar bill on a string through a trailer park, and that he’s sold this country on the cheap.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
Trump's ego and his financial pressure make him easy for the Deep State to control.
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Sep 28 2020 17:15 utc | 41
b qoute....'this is a dud''... exactly... everyone knew this issue would rear it's head again at election time... so frigging boring...
Posted by: james | Sep 28 2020 17:20 utc | 42
Nor do they reveal any previously unreported connections to Russia.
There must be something wrong with the tax filings. Or, perhaps, the very structure of our reality is such that we can not observe a Trump–Russia connection: the instant someone starts looking into one, it disappears. Or, perhaps, this connection can only be observed at extremely high temperatures and densities—conditions that only existed during the first nanosecond after the 2016 election results announcement.
Posted by: S | Sep 28 2020 17:41 utc | 43
Thanks B for sharing more obvious cheap Russian propaganda.
Really? Your conclusions are that Trump is actually quite rich, costs may be depreciated, losses do not require taxes and his tax advisors are so smart they are avoiding taxes but within the boundaries of the law?
Come on, are you (or your masters) really that stupid? Or expecting your readers to be so dumb to fall for this obvious weak reasons?
The big elephant in the room here: it confirms why Trump - unlike every previous US president in history - is not publishing his tax returns because he has lots of money sources to hide!
Real commercial business men do whatever is needed to make a business profitable. Not Trump, almost all his businesses only generate losses. He needs his presidency to send invoices to his own government to have at least some kind of income. Sooner or later the world will get confirmation of the other huge elephant in the room: the unknown sources of money are the masters and Trump is just a broke puppet.
Posted by: Vladimir | Sep 28 2020 17:46 utc | 44
The relevant information in the tax returns is that DT, who has millions of dollars in assets, pays less tax than I do. Three times less. I have nothing of value and live on 2500 euros a month. I have to save to pay taxes every year, which affects how I live my life considerably. The relevant information is that the rich and super rich pay no taxes or very little, like DT, as opposed to most people who work long and hard to make ends meet and have to pay taxes. That is abnormal, absurd, immoral and socially very harmful. It is highly disturbing that the majority, forced into their way of life (by the rich who control the system and dictate the laws which they flout), is paying for everything, including the nuclear weapons, the bio weapons and all weapons, the wars, the surveillance, the torture the enormous and burgeoning lying industry called the media. As long as the reaction to the fact that DT pays less taxes than I, and you, is taken as - old news, boring etc, DT will continue to have millions in assets and we will pay for everything, including their systematic crimes, in which we are actually highly complicit.
I re-read Karl Jaspers today and urge you to do the same. He said it all in 1958: https://existenz.us/volumes/Vol.9-2Jaspers.html
Posted by: JB | Sep 28 2020 17:54 utc | 45
@ Faazzla | Sep 28 2020 13:11 utc | 9
Interesting -- you picked up on the very same two matters that I was going to comment about -- the fact that Trump owes more in personal debts than his assets are worth, and Trump's writing off against his taxes of payments totaling $747,622 to Ivanka, written off by him as "outside consulting fees" for Ivanka's "consulting" with him about the exact, very same businesses that she was being paid a salary to manage for him.
That's called tax fraud, and it's a federal felony.
No wonder he's so desperate to cling to the presidency, It's the only thing standing between him and prison. Well, that and the now totally corrupted supreme court.
Posted by: AntiSpin | Sep 28 2020 17:55 utc | 46
Nor do they reveal any previously unreported connections to Russia.
NYTimes is referring to the connections to Russian Jewish oligarchs that have a stronger connection to Israel than Russia.
What b calls a nothing-burger is actually a reinforcing of the false narrative. As well as a confirmation that Trump is controlled by a Deep State that has the power to make lawsuits against him go away (Trump University), his tax problems disappear, and his failing businesses prosper.
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Sep 28 2020 18:11 utc | 47
The movie of the Trump campaign might resemble "The Producers". Trump's role being that of Wilder's and Mostel's. Trump started out not 'intending' to win merely wanting some "good pr" and he got fat-tailed and got away from him and now is likely to get him in prison. Had he lost he'd been in better shape. But he changed his strategic goal from just 'contending' to 'winning' sometime during the campaign and the logic of winning has now caught him out. He was a 'success' and oversold the shares. He is an almost pure representative of archetypal American style capitalists--the inclination towards fraud is nearly genetic.
Posted by: Stephen Laudig | Sep 28 2020 18:35 utc | 48
Stephen Laudig @48
I don't think Trump changed his intention with the election. Trump was as surprised as everyone else with the results. He had no transition team set up, nobody vetted for his cabinet, and even improvised his victory speech. That said, after the election he ran with it, though I don't see that he really had a choice. What could he do, say "Hey guys, it was just a joke! How about we say Clinton is president, OK?"
Other than that minor detail, I agree with your post.
Posted by: William Gruff | Sep 28 2020 18:51 utc | 49
We should not forget how Trump mishandled his nonprofit Foundation.
Prosecutors, citing numerous abuses, requested that Trump be barred from nonprofits for 10 years. AFAIK they didn't get that but instead NYS Atty General will oversee operations of any future nonprofits.
Judge Says Trump Must Pay $2 Million Over Misuse Of Foundation Funds.
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Sep 28 2020 18:52 utc | 50
I skimmed trough the story in a Finnish tabloid. I then commented on the issue on Facebook, trying to be funny.
Translation: "The data shows Trump is still hiding his wealth. He may also be hiding his connections to Russia!"
I now see that the Finnish tabloid did not make it up, nor did I mistranslate the meaning. (I did try.) The non sequitur exists in the fucking New York Times!
A non sequitur is a logical fallacy, but The New York Times uses it as a literary device.
Posted by: Petri Krohn | Sep 28 2020 18:57 utc | 51
William Gruff @Sep28 18:51 #49: running based on ego or for public relations makes little sense.
For wealthy people, personally engaging in politics is fraught with expense, difficulty and reputational risk. Running can work against a billionaire because they piss off pols that they want to work with.
Virtually no one that has great wealth wants to be directly involved. Especially on the Republic side - a Party that is generally viewed as favoring the wealthy so ordinary people will just hate a billionaire candidate even more.
So I don't buy the notion that Trump expected to lose. And he's too self-centered to be involved in public service or to engage in the "fools errand" (my works, not his) of running for office (a full-time job) with no expectation of a benefit.
He was the only MAGA candidate. And the only one that positioned himself as a "populist" in the Republican primary. That alone is suspicious. But Hillary's facing Sanders the sheep dog in the Democratic Primary and her old friend Trump in the General election is also suspicious.
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Sep 28 2020 19:10 utc | 52
Posted by: Circe | Sep 28 2020 17:12 utc | 40
It is hard not to agree with your rantings about Trump, but your opinions would be more reasonable if once in a while Biden and his Ukraine business would come up. The Biden deal in Ukraine has a very dark side to it besides the monetary aspect, a country has been destroyed, a lot of people killed. Besides, you repeat the line of Trump good for Russia, no need to list the facts, but there are lots of them that testify to the contrary of your assertion. One last point, for a while I thought Bernie was an honest man, from the distance I felt the Bern too, but the old guy did not fool me twice, he is just another cog in the infamous machine, the machine that gives you the chore of electing between unelectable old and spent candidates. I do not vote, but a third option would be the only reasonable one.
Posted by: Paco | Sep 28 2020 19:43 utc | 53
If Trump’s taxes reveal anything, it is the systemic, legalized abuse of the tax system by the 1%.
You can bet that the NYT will never go there. Trump’s tax returns are spun as those of one bad apple, not revelatory of a stinking heap of unpatriotic rotten apples who refuse to pay their fair share to the government that coddles and protects them.
Problem is, those stinking rotten apples are otherwise known as advertisers. For Democrats, they’re donors. The system is rotten to the core.
Posted by: JohnH | Sep 28 2020 19:47 utc | 54
Here's One Fix:
Reinstall AMT.
BoneShards, who Whined and Moaned about them, reduced/abolished them with the latest Tax Code Revisions.
Closing Loopholes...
Posted by: IronForge | Sep 28 2020 19:48 utc | 55
The Times article does depreciate the Trump brand, subtracting a little from the fairytale appeal of his commanding role in The Apprentice. This kind of tax exposure will probably cause a burning sensation in that throb of narcissism that mimics a heart.
Vladimir’s post #44 has inspired me to continue my search (started in #43) for plausible scientific explanations of why the totally real Trump–Russia connection has not been observed by anyone yet. Prepare to have your mind blown! What if there are extra spatial dimensions with looped geometry that are so tiny that we can not perceive them, yet large enough to contain the Trump–Russia connection? To most terrestrial lifeforms, which have evolved over millions of years right up to November 8, 2016 A.D. without a pressing need to detect the Trump–Russia connection to survive and are thus limited to only seeing the ordinary “large” three dimensions, it would appear that Trump and Russia are separate and not connected in any way by any kind of special connection. And yet. . . it’s right there, tucked away in the hidden dimensions!
Posted by: S | Sep 28 2020 20:20 utc | 58
Posted by: S | Sep 28 2020 20:20 utc | 58
You are on the right track i believe😂👍
Posted by: Per/Norway | Sep 28 2020 20:43 utc | 59
@Circe Did bernie get the nod? No...he sold out just like 2016. BTW if you actually want people to pay attention to you, maybe a wee lil sorry for all the ridiculous antics and name calling you did before the Burn Burned everyone again, would help. Until you do yer just a shallow hypocrite with nothing to add except noise.
Yep calling you out Circe.
Put up or shut up
Posted by: Tannenhouser | Sep 28 2020 20:44 utc | 60
The essential corruption of US tax laws is that they are used to steer the money of the very rich. "You don't have to pay tax if you do this and this." "Charity" and depreciation allowances and loss carry forwards and nominal values, all of it is an elaborate scheme to reward the rich for cooperating in certain priorities.
That is what big business returns are. Of course they don't show taxable profit -- that is the whole point of the tax laws.
It is wrong to run our tax laws this way, but we do, and everyone with money and all big corporations are totally bought into it.
Posted by: Mark Thomason | Sep 28 2020 20:52 utc | 61
Posted by: S | Sep 28 2020 20:20 utc | 58
And yet. . . it’s right there, tucked away in the hidden dimensions!
This would be the topological explanation.
Posted by: pogohere | Sep 28 2020 21:54 utc | 62
Is anybody here aware of a new massive data leak today regarding Trumps voter suppression of the black vote ? Aparently one of the largest leaks of data ever known.
Posted by: Mark2 | Sep 28 2020 22:23 utc | 63
The essential corruption of US tax laws is by: Mark Thomason @ 61 mr. Thomason.. the tax laws were installed in the same month as the Federal Reserve Act, both 1919.. why, it dates back to 1787, when the constitution was written, the wealthy few refused to allow the states they lived in to tax their estates..to fund the USA before the USA that was formed by the constitution came into play. Before 1788, the USA operated under the Articles of Confederation and was a different government all together. Thing was, most of the landed real estate owners refused to pay their fair share of the taxes on landed estates that had been given to them by foreign governments, the massive monster estates were called land grants; and the Aristocrats in America were granted private ownership of these estates, by foreign governments.
The American Revolutionary Government[ARG], called the USA, operated under the Articles of Confederation (not the Constitution of the USA).. The ARG defeated the British, the ARG organized America, the ARG hired the richest man they could find, George Washington to be the General of the Army, and it was that Army that defeated the British at Valley forge..
The first president of the United States of America was John Hanson, 1781, .. there were 7 Presidents in all, before George Washington,
The Constitution came into being because the wealthy land grant feudal lords, ex British and French Aristocrats did not want the 1st United States of America to take away the land grant estates that foreign kings and queens had given these rich owners. No sir the land grant owners wanted to keep that wealth and the power that went with it.. So they over threw the ARG, known as the United States of America, by a devise known as ratification. Article VII of their 1987 constitution and used that constitution to install a government that suited Aristocrats, land grant owners, and their corporations.
Hidden deep in the 1787 Constitution is the clause which made sure the land grant owners would be able to keep their foreign grants (massive sized estates)? Besides using the Constitution 1787 to exterminate democracy in America, the land grant owners used it to keep their land grant. Article VI accomplished keeping large parts of America in foreign hands. It reads "All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this (the 1787) constitution, shall be valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.." This clause explains how the Land grant Barons (British now America Aristocrats) managed to keep in their private ownership millions of Acres given to them by foreign governments; this clause kept the ARG from distributing those land grant acres to the warriors who helped George Washington at Valley Forge. ..
Next came the bankers war.. called the America Civil War, and because A. Lincoln, issued currency without including the bankers, he was murdered, and every year until 1912, the Supreme Court of the USA refused to change Article I, Sec. 9, paragraph 4, of the 1787 constitution which read "no Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, Unless in proportion to the Census .. " this mean the income tax you are familiar with was unconstitutional until in 1913, when in desperation the WWI war party, forced the the twenty-sixth amendment into ratification, to reverse every word in the Article I, Sec. 9, paragraph 4 (above). These events the American Civil War, Assassination of Lincoln [<=because Lincoln funded the civil war without benefit of the bankers], the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, the income tax act of 1913, and the 26th amendment of 1913, were important to the oil bandits and private bankers who wanted the oil under the Ottoman land. There would be no profit in lending to bankrupt European nations and war industries, if the loans were not repaid. The 1913 acts solved the repayment problem < it made Americans (by the income tax) guarantors of all war time loans made by private bankers.
so "Oligarchs, land Barons, and intangible property rights owners don't have to pay tax" because the income tax is an an elaborate scheme designed to finance the wealth of the rich by extracting the savings and earnings from the pockets of the masses. Importantly, the Oligarchs franchise the nation states to groups of oligarchs and their corporations and the franchisees keep the bankers plush with local franchise laws.
Posted by: snake | Sep 28 2020 22:48 utc | 64
Tannerhouser @ 60
And by the same token ! You owe me an appolagy for calling me cxxt (yes we all know the word ! ) about two years ago discussing ‘ increasing fascism in America. How’s that looking now ?
Oh and who’s the hypocrite now ?
I’m still waiting for an apology to.
Posted by: Mark2 | Sep 28 2020 22:50 utc | 65
Mark2, what a pathetically whiney cunt you are. How fragile does one's ego have to be, to carry a grudge, for two years, over such a minor slight?
Shut up and grow a pair you putz
Posted by: Oh lordy | Sep 28 2020 23:06 utc | 66
It would be interesting if Fox news obtained Biden's tax returns, then we would have a full blown propaganda war till the election. After all, that is the norm for US presidential elections.
Posted by: Dick | Sep 28 2020 23:06 utc | 67
I know a person who sends their child to Harvard Westlake in Los Angeles (an elite private school of celebrity's children) at a subsidized rate because they "incorporated" themselves as an S-Corp (or an LLC or some other variant) and they hide most of their personal income through a business. They pay a fraction of the tuition (still 11k per year) while unfortunate workers on more standard payrolls have their taxes siphoned away in order to assist this person's undeserving, below-average child.
This person is a hard-core Democrat who gets giddy for Adam Schiff monologues.
There are tens to hundreds of thousands more like this person in the U.S. who skirt taxes in a similar way.
At least Trump and others have actual businesses that employ people other than the man himself at least a portion of the time when they aren't merely collecting rents (even though billionaire rentiers are a fundamental flaw in the economic system).
Posted by: Rutherford82 | Sep 28 2020 23:10 utc | 68
Ha trump supporters don’t ya jus luv’m (not)
Excuse me while I put another log on this fire 🔥
Posted by: Mark2 | Sep 28 2020 23:20 utc | 69
@ Mark Thomason | Sep 28 2020 20:52 utc | 61... that is how it looks to me as well.. why bother making something out of trumps non tax returns when the whole usa kleptocracy runs this way??? either fix the system, or stop the hypocrisy thinking it is some unique phenom of a particular politician you don't want to see elected...
Posted by: james | Sep 28 2020 23:27 utc | 70
The question I have is anything the NYT published based on anonymous sources ever true? Is this another article based on documents that we will never see and sources that we will never know?
A flat tax would fix this mess anyway. No deductions, everyone pays. Another shot at the Teflon Don that will do little damage. Damage is the intention, obviously.
Posted by: circumspect | Sep 29 2020 0:22 utc | 71
We'll see if it is a dud, or if it gets traction -
store.joebiden.com/I-Paid-More-In-Taxes-Than-Donald-Trump-Vinyl-Stickers-2-Pack/
Posted by: renorich | Sep 29 2020 0:27 utc | 72
@Mark2 (post 63)
Story can be seen here
www.channel4.com/news/revealed-trump-campaign-strategy-to-deter-millions-of-black-americans-from-voting-in-2016
No clue how true it is...
Posted by: renorich | Sep 29 2020 0:40 utc | 73
A “flat tax” is an oligarch’s dream and would not fix the “mess” of deductions for legitimate business reasons being abused and non-policed.
What would fix this problem is 99% taxes on income and wealth over 100x the poverty line. End the opportunity of dynastic wealth. End the psychology of people seeking it.
Posted by: oglalla | Sep 29 2020 0:48 utc | 74
Hoo lookit all the ninnies who have been lured into the bullshit of amerikans fixed & fraudulent quadrennial prez beauty contest in 2020 just as they are every time it runs. Why invest any time & energy in something which is so mundanely predictable?
Whichever lame puppet of amerikan billionaires wins the thing is irrelevant the only certainty is that the posters who take one side or the other will lose.
That is pre-ordained so wtf are all these past their use b y date retired dingbats doing? Filling in time until thy die? There are plenty of ways to do that which don't result in humiliation. Get out there and build something useful in your community. Get to gether with others and make something that will assist others through the inevitable disaster that the rich are creating. Something that can help protect the vast majority of humans who are not greedy sociopaths.
The only remotely interesting thing about the orangeutan's debts is that it is highly likely the bulk of the money owed is to the arms dealing, drug running, money laundering entity called Deutsch Bank the gang who have been financing chaos for close to 70 years, by doing deals with the same right wing dictatorships that sheltered nazi crims -hired them to genocide the indigenous population of Latin America.
There is no way they can ever by caught for their early crimes most of the participants are long dead, but why aren't they getting pulled up on the recent shit?
Sorry that was rhetorical we know why they aren't getting hassled especially not by amerika, anyone with a modicum of power in that obscenely greedy nation is in bed with either the bank or some of their clients.
If types really don't want to get out from behind their screens & be constructive, the least that could be done is pulling at the few threads these heavily sanitised articles and the articles released last week about global crooked finances and work to bring the arseholes down.
Wasting energy on some thing so fake & facile as elections in amerika is never going to do anything, but fighting to bring down the infrastructure of financial evil may.
Posted by: Debsisdead | Sep 29 2020 0:56 utc | 75
It basically says Trump is such a poor business man his business losses overwhelm his income to the point he has little tax liability. His losses have been covered by 600 million in loans issued by Deutsche Bank and Ladder Capital, loans which are coming due soon.
Deutsche Bank has an estimated $320 million in loans on 3 properties: data from Trump's June 2017 financial disclosure form and estimate based on full loan amounts reported in the news .
After Trumps bankruptcies few banks would do business with Trump by Deutsche Bank came to the rescue time and time against despite defaults on loans with Deutsche Bank
Besides Deutsche Bank , a company named Ladder Capital Finance issued $282 million in loans to Trump on 4 properties. In Feb 2017 the Related Companies bought $80 million in Ladder stock. Stephen Ross, chairman & founder of Related Companies, has been a client of Rosemary Vrablic a senior banker at Deutsche Bank, who counts Trump and Jared Kushner as customers
Deutsche's Rosemary Vrablic arranged loans for Trump & prior to election, Deutsche funded $285 million for Jared Kushner to refinance loan on part of former NYT building bought from Putins fav oligarch Lev Leviev whose company AFI was involved in Prevezon $ laundering case
Rosemary Vrablic started in banking in the mid 80’s with Israeli Bank Leumi where the Kushners were customers. Her boss at Deutsche Bank handled Epsteins account which he had brought over from JP morgan after they stopped doing business with Epstein.
Deutsche Bank is being sued by investors over their questionable loans to wealthy and suspect clients. The Judge hearing the case had her husband and son shot by a former member of Kroll Associates who was based in Moscow in the late 90’s.
Many don’t recall but Deutsche Bank handled the Puts that were placed shortly before 9/11 with a former Kroll Associate working for the CIA, and Kroll in charge of WTC security
Deutsche Bank has allegedly been a huge money launderer for Russian and FSU oligarchs. The recent FinCEN leaks involve more than $2 trillion USD worth of flagged transactions from 1999 to 2017.
The majority of the transactions come from Deutsche Bank which had more than half the $2 Trillion-dollar sum of the FinCEN Files. The main focus is on Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs.
There is an interesting story here but sadly nobody is interested.
Posted by: Kay Fabe | Sep 29 2020 1:23 utc | 76
@75 Debsisdead
I would be curious to hear how you would break the chains of such financial evil without a military. Boycotts and bank runs, sure, but what happens when financial evil plays dirty and they can print endless money to boot? Seems like a tough puzzle to solve even theoretically.
Posted by: Rutherford82 | Sep 29 2020 1:42 utc | 77
re Kay Fabe #76
Thanks for providing some much needed data on the scope of Deutsch Bank banks immoral illegal activities, data I didn't provide cos of indolence, constant RL interruption and a concern that the only info on this gang of crooks that the corporate media has published concerns alleged 'Russian' interests that omits facts, such as many of the principals of the scams, may have been born in Russia, but now live in Malta & Israel.
I'm certain this bank must be up to illegal activity all over the globe, if it had confined itself to bandits in the former USSR it would have been shut down years ago and the wealth seized to be divided among the western crims.
The fact that orangeutan was able to access loans so readily suggests he probably had dealings with the bank in other criminal milieus prior to hopping onto the 'strip Eastern Europe' scam. That is the data which is most needed because it is obvious that the tools of the oligarchy such as NYT or the Graun will never publicise the banks criminality outside Russia.
The bloke at #77 who reckons we should all just give up before we start cannot have thought this issue through. Much of the world is about to go through a state of poverty that won't just make 1929 or 2008 appear minor, it is likely to be endless.
At the moment the elites are keeping citizens' wrath at bay by dividing the population against each other, an expose of the criminality of the politicians and their owners in both halves of the amerikan empire party could be the one thing which unites people to resist their coming servitude in a way that the side issues which have been morphed into a 'culture war' cannot.
Remember the military & the police are also citizens and the elites will struggle to keep all their guard dogs loyal when they too are confronted with the reality of who they serve.
That creates issues that printing money, especially soon to be worthless US $ bills won't repair.
Posted by: Debsisdead | Sep 29 2020 2:05 utc | 78
@ Rutherford82 | Sep 29 2020 1:42 utc | 77 who posits that breaking the chains of financial evil takes military and wrote, "Seems like a tough puzzle to solve even theoretically."
I know your comment was directed at Debsisdead # 75 but I couldn't resist throwing my $0.02 across the bar.
I am going to posit in return that the China/Russia axis meet your requirement for military strength.
I am also going to posit a scenario about how it happens to solve your theoretical conundrum.
The China/Russia axis represent an alternative to the financial evil world and their example of public focused governance is and will continue to grow in the world. In those countries that remain under the jackboot of financial evil, if there is any ability to protest left, I expect to see yard signs pop up that say I SUPPORT PUBLIC BANKING. As more and more people come to understand that financial evil poisons the core of our social contract, more and more signs will go up all over the world in multiple languages. A tipping point will be reached where enough people see the obvious consensus on the solution to financial evil and it will be implemented.
It is the social will that is difficult to instantiate but its coming if the China/Russia axis is not defeated and not many are betting on that horse...but there is the chicken shit nuclear holocaust option, I guess.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Sep 29 2020 2:10 utc | 79
...
Trump's writing off against his taxes of payments totaling $747,622 to Ivanka, written off by him as "outside consulting fees" for Ivanka's "consulting" with him about the exact, very same businesses that she was being paid a salary to manage for him.
That's called tax fraud, and it's a federal felony.
...
Posted by: AntiSpin | Sep 28 2020 17:55 utc | 46
No it's not.
Bosses aren't required to pay tax on money paid out on salaries, commissions, bonuses, and consulting fees etc paid to employees. That is because the employee is required to pay tax on his/her INCOME.
So long as Ivanka filed an Income Tax Return and declared the relevant sums in her list of income sources, it's all perfectly and completely legal - in ANY business/organisation.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Sep 29 2020 2:40 utc | 80
@60 Tannenhouser and the other Trump bootlicking yellowbellies who won't touch my argument because it will expose their duplicity and are so offended I would even dare to bait their non-existant integrity.
I repeat:
And no one on this site including the host has effectively explained how Trump being good for Israel, Russia and Saudi Arabia outweighs swindling Palestine of the West Bank, attempting regime change in Venezuela, multiple acts of war to provoke and destroy Iran and initiating Cold War with China.That's cause many of you here are a bunch of hypocritical, deceptive Trump bootlickers who won't touch that argument, that's really a foolproof bullshet meter test, with a ten foot pole.
Tannenhouser, I moved on from Bernie when he endorsed Biden and if I hurt your feelings, gimme proof! If I did, you probably deserved it. Are you that thin-skinned?
Don't try to distract from the issue of Trump with Bernie non-issue.
I will trounce anyone who tries to put lipstick on that Trump pig and that's your real problem with me.
Posted by: Circe | Sep 29 2020 3:01 utc | 81
Circe, repeat after me. . .NO NEW WARS THANK YOU TRUMP.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Sep 29 2020 3:06 utc | 82
@ Debsisdead (75)
> fighting to bring down the infrastructure of financial evil
Is crashing two commercial jetliners into the World Trade center an example of "fighting to bring down the infrastructure of financial evil"?
Posted by: renorich | Sep 29 2020 3:12 utc | 83
There's an embarrassingly amusing aspect to this story.
The Dems, like most politicians, are in politics to line their own pockets. So their own tax returns would be just as acrobatically complex as Trump's, if not more so.
Therefore they would be just as aware as Trump of the Tax benefits, perks and loopholes available to rich folks. And yet they're so detached from reality that they were able to convince themselves that Trump's imaginary crimes against the Tax System might be worse than their own real crimes against the Tax system and Americans who have to actually Work for a living.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Sep 29 2020 3:17 utc | 84
@82 Don Bacon
Wrong answer. You dodged my argument.
On the issue of war; Trump wasn't tested. What if Iran had made a serious effort to avenge Soleimani's assassination or restarted its nuclear program to counter Trump's decision to void the JCPOA and reinstate more severe sanctions against Iran? What if Kim tested a nuke after Trump refused to loosen sanctions until Kim agreed to give up his nukes?
@84 Hoarsewhisperer
The Democratic Primary candidates including Biden released their tax returns and there is nothing out of the ordinary in a y of them. Biden and wife made a lot of money on their respective books and speaking engagements and paid about $2 Million in taxes.
Trump would never have gotten security clearance with his debt and foreign revenue. You could say he cheated his way into the Presidency like he cheated as a private citizen.
Posted by: Circe | Sep 29 2020 4:07 utc | 85
Posted by: Circe | Sep 29 2020 4:07 utc | 85
If (Circe's favorite word) you're hinting that you're a Tax Expert and have been through Trump and the Biden's Tax returns with a fine tooth comb, I'm going to ROTFLMAO.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Sep 29 2020 4:25 utc | 86
re: 83 Despite the rather trite attempt to divert away from the real issue I shall answer YES, of course it was, tho likely not the primary motive for the scions of wealthy Saudi families who carried out the action.
So, Yes - but it was an ineffective effort that lacked being a part of a larger integrated strategy consequently after the arseholes did their usual and set one half of the population against the other half in a pointless debate full of dog whistles such as "as if a mob of cave dwelling sand n**gers could do that to US ?", enabled the elites to step up their thefts rapes & murders about the globe on the grounds that "They're all sand n**gers anyway". As per usual amerikans lapped up that specious tosh willingly, because it was grounded in the racism which two and a half centuries of indoctrination has ensured makes any act no matter how outrageous perfectly palatable to most amerikans.
Until amerikans can teach themselves to resist these obvious set-ups they will remain the playthings, zombies and lapdogs of the elites.
There is no point in acknowledging the dembot, the first poster to whine that his/her own feelings have been hurt.
Posted by: Debsisdead | Sep 29 2020 4:42 utc | 87
re...landed estates that had been given to them by foreign governments, the massive monster estates were called land grants.
E.g. the British Crown established and appointed the governor of each of the Colonies and each grant came with the Governor's sworn loyalty to the King, such that refusal to follow he dictates of the Crown would annul the Land Grants...simply ensuring Crown control of each Governor, along with ever-presence of British troops.
It's business... probably referred to in 1600s as the Art Of The Deal.
Posted by: chuteh | Sep 29 2020 4:50 utc | 88
My #88 is reply to snake Sep 28 2020 22:48 utc | 64
That was a particularly fine post, snake.
Posted by: chu teh | Sep 29 2020 4:55 utc | 89
Posted by: Circe | Sep 28 2020 15:01 utc | 24
Fort Lauderdale Police released segments of bodycam video showing officers handcuffing former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale. It is not clear what occurred in the moments not shown in the edited three-minute compilation provided by FLPD.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0GY4zwigBU
Posted by: Mao | Sep 29 2020 5:16 utc | 90
Channel 4 News has exclusively obtained a vast cache of data used by Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign on almost 200 million American voters.
It reveals that 3.5 million Black Americans were categorised by Donald Trump’s campaign as ‘Deterrence’ – voters they wanted to stay home on election day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIf5ELaOjOk
Posted by: Mao | Sep 29 2020 5:55 utc | 91
Thanks for that Renorich @ 91 and earlyer Remorich @ 73 re yet another leak, if I was Trump I’d realease Julian Assange ! Before the Epstein leak hits the fan.
I’d love to see a whole post titled THE CRIMES OF DONALD TRUMP, considering the selective amnesia displayed on this thread. Plus the projection directed at any one who dislikes trump.
But carry on I sense your pain and desperation and enjoy your lipstick on a pig attempts.
The twin towers was a Republican job with (((help)))
Posted by: Mark2 | Sep 29 2020 7:24 utc | 92
The quote by Frederic Bastiat first brought to the attention of this bar by Karlof1 bears repeating.
"When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorises it and a moral code that glorifies it." A legal tax system that glorifies greed.
What ever happened to “from each according to the abilities; to each according to their needs” I remember Noam Chomsky saying there was a survey done where the majority of Americans thought this slogan of Karl Marx was in the Declaration of Independence.
Posted by: Tom | Sep 29 2020 7:25 utc | 93
Correction my above comment should credit Mao @91 for the link
Posted by: Mark2 | Sep 29 2020 8:38 utc | 94
"do Americans even care?" Does anyone in the West (or the whole world) care?
"Last weekend, BuzzFeed News, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, and more than 100 international news organizations released the FinCEN Files investigation detailing how a plethora of international banks are permitting financial transactions linked to drug cartels, human trafficking, and oligarchs. The series gets its name from the US Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and is based on more than 2,100 leaked “suspicious activity reports” (SARs) and other US government documents."
"Despite the many newsworthy stories within the FinCEN leaks, a deeper understanding among the public seems to be lacking. Within just one week of the story first breaking, the American public seems uninterested. There are too many things to be concerned about – the manufactured fear of COVID-19 and the manufactured Civil War," [or Trump's taxes] "for example – for Americans to pay attention to yet another story of criminal banks. Caring about the banksters and Wall Street financial criminals is so 2011."
"The FinCEN leaks reveal that abuses of the suspicious activity reports are commonplace throughout international financial institutions. However, the most damaging and interesting aspects of the leaks might be what they fail to reveal."
It's pretty easy (it's not being hidden) to link the elite to criminal enterprise and international finance:-
Jeffrey Epstein was a member of the Trilatteral Commission and therefore a member (or functionary) of the elite:- Trilateral Commission - Notable Members (Wikipedia)
Epstein is linked to Deutsche Bank, one of the biggest, most corrupt and most bankrupt European/Western/International institutions:- Deutsche Bank fined for Jeffrey Epstein ‘compliance failures'
Trump's taxes are another distraction (and Trump is happy to play along).
Posted by: ADKC | Sep 29 2020 9:39 utc | 95
I haven't paid taxes since at least the 1980s. The reality every year before that is I either owed the IRS $100 a year or they owed me $100. So why bother filing, when there were - at that time - an estimated *five million* tax cheats in this country.
And as an anarchist, well...
I couldn't care less if Trump is a tax cheat. That's the least of his bad qualities.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Sep 29 2020 10:28 utc | 96
Folks, you guys are all right and wrong.. the worst candidate is little if any better than the best candidate.. The problem is not the candidate, or those who support the candidate, the object of every election is to divide the voters, after all none of the votes for President count. The controllers of the two party system win every election, no matter the promises of the corrupt to change things.
The problem is the 256 nation state system divides 8 billion humans into 256 different governing people separating, faction polarizing franchises. Each franchise is different, but generally,typically the owners divide their franchises into separate smaller independently managed cells (the USA calls cells<= states, counties, and cities) and each franchise owner develops a system of governance that allows to the franchise owner to continuously keep divided those the franchise governs (guns/no guns; abortion/no abortion; socialism/capitalism, religion/no religion, etc <=these binaries keep the governed humanity separated and reduce the power of the masses below that needed to deny managerial corruption and out and out organized crime. .. Those privileged few, who franchise governments, leave organization and governance to the franchise owners, but each is expected to arrange to earn his or her reward by being able to rob blind those who are the governed. You at the bar are among the guilty governed.
Until humanity defines requirements sufficient for the governed to maintain control over the system and to hold those who govern accountable for their failings and wrongdoings, nothing significant is going to change. Even revolution will yield no different result.
Until humanity demands the right to and actually gains un infringed total access to the operation of the entire system and until that demand results in audits by the governed of lawmakers, government bureaucrats, military and contractors, and affairs of the rest of government nothing is going to change. Those who franchise the 256 governments expect those who franchise owners to derive franchise ownership reward from corruption. Humanity must force into place, a system that supports the needs, wants, and demands of governed mankind, and a system that makes sure no one person gets too far ahead. We humans are all in this life together and society is obligated to be sure everyone gets a fair portion of the goodies.
The private monsters, as in the MSM, the MIC, the bankers, the lawyers, the educators, the Indians, the corporations, the whatevers will survive as superior only so long as they control the parts of the government that affect their affairs. It is absurd that a population of humans, claiming to be proud of its democracy and right of self determination, allows itself to be governed by a constitution that presents a bunch of lousy corrupt leaders in false flag elections to be responsible to the needs of the governed. No government that allows its leaders to hide their affairs or to conduct their activities in classified secret fashion is rational. Unconscionable is a governed population that would allow its leaders to harass put whistle blowers and journalist like Assange in jail for exposing the crimes and failures of those who operate the government .. The joke is on you. Those who govern this USA franchise, govern, because you allow it..
My time at the bar is now about three years, and I have not heard but a few people even interested in changing things, all you want to do is drink the suds, and talk about the corruption, shoot at the owner, and after a few drinks to start fights among yourselves over whether or not the cow is brown or black. Shame on you..
Posted by: snake | Sep 29 2020 10:42 utc | 97
Posted by: snake | Sep 28 2020 22:48 utc | 64
Thanks for the history lesson.
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@ Debsisdead (75)
> fighting to bring down the infrastructure of financial evil
Is crashing two commercial jetliners into the World Trade center an example of "fighting to bring down the infrastructure of financial evil"?
Posted by: renorich | Sep 29 2020 3:12 utc | 83
George H W Bush, from the White House, announced "New World Order" soon after USSR fell. He clearly indicated it would be run out of "United Nations". Unlike the rest of sock puppets in WH, GHWB was an actual player and likely part of the original group that took down JFK. He spoke with authority.
Subsequent to this we had the NATO and Yugoslavia war.
At some point in 90s, the shape-shifting crowd who are currently known as "neoconservatives" published clearly provocative "doctrines" for the "next American Century" that gave the lie to Emperor GHWB's vision of the "New World Order".
Very late in the 90s, the French started calling US "the Hyperpower" (to distinguish it from the inferior "superpower"). Translated from French to English, this meant "we see US deep state actually desires supramacy and not the agreed 'New World Order'".
In year 2000, the Supreme Court of US handed the presidency to Bush the lesser.
In year 2001, an undeclared act of aggression designed to humiliate and tarnish the prestige of the "hyperpower" happened. Clearly an event involving both inside moles/traitors and advanced and powerful state backers overseas. What sort of a mickey mouse nation has their Department of Defense head quarters in flames by "sand niggers" who can't even fly single Cessnas? .
Subsequent to this, US of Neoconservative America, launched into a series of ill advised acts of destruction to "shock and awe" the upset former partners in the "New World Order". (Iraq's generals had already made their deals with the Americans.) .
--
Were the "neoconservatives" really that stupid (as it appeared to this American reader in 90s) to loudly assert that US can not allow any power to challange it?
Posted by: conspiracy-theorist | Sep 29 2020 11:25 utc | 98
[email protected] is correct, Trump is the very avatar of the US ruling class. And while many of his peers can't stand that his real offense is screwing with their money. And that is why their attempts at persuasion have evolved into theatrical vehemence.
This 'reveal' brings the issue of class into high relief and this should be hammered home.
Posted by: conspiracy-theorist | Sep 29 2020 11:25 utc | 97
"Were the "neoconservatives" really that stupid (as it appeared to this American reader in 90s) to loudly assert that US can not allow any power to challange it?"
It looked pretty stupid to me at the time, still does. But that's just an opinion. What they are is dogmatists, crude herd thinkers, they reason from dogma, and when their "strategies" fail they just double down. When you are the "hyperpower" that can go on for quite some time, but it only goes to one place, where we are now. When 9/11 happened we were on top of the world here, and accepted in that role. Now? Where are we now? You can thank the Neocons for that, and everybody who backed the idea of world domination as an achievable and worthy goal. Infantile, it was.
Posted by: Bemildred | Sep 29 2020 11:40 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
Is anybody really surprised that the so called trump opposition in Washngton (AKA the swamp that trump claimed he would eliminate) engineered the revelation of trump's taxes just before the election and once again it turns out to be a giant nothing burger that benefits trump.
The deep state will manage to get trump elected one way or another.
Posted by: jinn | Sep 28 2020 11:54 utc | 1