House OKs bill on IRS audits of U.S. presidents

The IRS probably doesn't properly understand the complexities of certain tax vehicles setup by expensive Tax consultants, otherwise if they did, then I'd guess that those who knew, would leave the IRS and become an expensive Tax Consultant.

This Tax Massaging has been going on since time began, it's not limited to Trump alone. The only difference with Trump, is that it's become Politicized, and a dump of all his Tax details is about to be made, which will probably have Tax Consultants pouring over for years to come, and may even become the required Study within University Courses.

From 2015 to 2020 Trump paid $1,777,342 in Federal Taxes but in 2020 Trump claimed a refund of $5.47 million.

Yet they found nothing wrong with any of his tax returns.

his returns identified “weakness in the tax code!!!”

in other words he followed the law exactly as written. To claim he and many other rich people cheated they have to change the law first.

So, he was lying when he said his taxes were under audit. In fact the ONE year that the IRS began an audit (2016) was started the same day that the Committee requested the docs, and it wasn’t finished before he left office because there are FAR too many red flags in need of investigation.

He lied about being a successful business man (it makes no sense to take huge personal loses since personal income taxes cannot go below zero). When the US economy that was rocking full-speed ahead on a combination of Obama policies and meth level tax cuts for the rich, Dotard was STILL losing money. He is truly America’s biggest loser.

He almost certainly cheated on his income taxes WHILE he was president (Jack Smith: call your office.)

Even when he did pay taxes, his effective tax rate was less than 4%. Explain that to your working-class rubes, Don.

I would love to attempt to see him rationalize how it’s fair for a “super-rich” (he’s not it seems) “major business figure” who was also POTUS, to pay less in taxes as a percentage - and in many years in absolute dollars - than the coal miners he claims to love

Trump claimed he paid tons of federal tax and claimed his wealth was $15 billion but nearer to $3 billion.

I actually believed Trump when he said his tax returns were under audit. How naive I was. It turns out they weren't and he was the only modern president not to have an audit done on them by the IRS while in office.

What Ah_so posted. Trump lied to the public.

Yet they found nothing wrong with any of his tax returns.

Because they didn't audit them. Hardly surprising they didn't find anything wrong because they didn't look!

But glad to have the latest MAGA excuse hot off the press.

He almost certainly cheated on his income taxes WHILE he was president (Jack Smith: call your office.)

Yet his 2016-2020 taxes were reviewed and released no such thing found or claimed. What a waste of time.

Explain that to your working-class rubes, Don.

tax law as written benefits the rich. Duh.

Yet they found nothing wrong with any of his tax returns. 

his returns identified “weakness in the tax code!!!”

in other words he followed the law exactly as written. To claim he and many other rich people cheated they have to change the law first.

Um, no…..

They found so many irregularities in need of further investigation that they couldn’t finish even the single audit they started.

And “other people do it too” is a truly weak deflection. “Other people” are not the President.

But one would imagine that now that he’s no longer President, the returns filed with his signature certifying that all the information is true under penalty of law will get the attention that they deserve both by the IRS, and by the public since they are now public record.

Yet his 2016-2020 taxes were reviewed and released no such thing found or claimed. What a waste of time.

This is “not true” bordering on laughable.

A clear explanation.

investment income. Real estate depreciation. Carrying forward of Actual losses.

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/3784189-how-trump-paid-0-in-income-tax-in-2020/amp/

where’s the crime and fraud and money from Putin we were promised?

“his taxes”! Total dud, again.

He did pay estimated taxes every year.

Goldburd pointed out that while Trump didn’t pay income tax in 2020, the former president has been making payments of his estimated taxes while rolling over portions of his refunds from previous years.

“He is continually paying in estimated taxes,” Goldburd said. “Three million [dollars] in 2020 plus a $10.6 million rollover for 2019. In 2019, it was $700,000 plus a $9.8 million rollover from the previous year.”

A clear explanation is that he is a horrible businessman and a tax cheat as well.

That much is perfectly clear at this point.

Beyond that, it will take a bit of time and a fair amount of forensic accounting to determine the extent of the business incompetence and tax fraud.

But we’ll get there! I would imagine that SOMEONE will want to have a deep dive into every single shady deduction, valuation and donation.

and a tax cheat as well.

Nope it actually said he wasn’t in the entire article.

A democrat:

These are issues much bigger than Donald Trump. Trump’s returns likely look similar to those of many other wealthy tax cheats—hundreds of partnership interests, highly-questionable deductions, and debts that can be shifted around to wipe out tax liabilities,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in a statement Wednesday.

“We need legislation to simplify the tax code,

Black: Yet they found nothing wrong with any of his tax returns.

So you obviously haven't been following this story closely and you obviously did not review the committee's report.

The biggest one off the top of my head is the $21 million charity deduction for land he donated. Usually people get a qualified appraisal but Trump did not. That raises the question of whether $21 million is closer to $0.

Tons of questions like that which need to be scrutinized, especially with Trump's history of corruption.

It’s been seven years. “Yet” isn’t used by that amount of passage of time.

you know taxes are a dud so you already deflected away to other stuff.

not like they can go back and retroactively change the tax code then claim a crime from the changed code.

but then again this is Trump. So maybe they will try that next.

What they’re saying is:

We previously thought that IRS rules were good enough and that no president would be so craven. We were wrong.

We need a law mandating presidents be audited to Trump-proof tax fraud by the head of the executive branch - something previously thought so unnecessary it was considered laughable.

We’re not laughing anymore. Lesson learned. And about these obviously false tax returns…..

It’s been seven years. “Yet” isn’t used by that amount of passage of time.

We get to stop using “yet” about a lot of things here very soon…

Blacklabel: He did pay estimated taxes every year.

How can such a savvy investor such as yourself not know about sending in estimated taxes early? You don't do that? Do you eat the penalty every year?

If Trump pays an estimated $5 million in taxes during the year and at the end of the year his tax bill is $0, he gets his estimated tax payments back (called overpayment).

So your definition if "paying" conveniently leaves out the part where he gets it all back.

Just as an aside, for a bit of fun, Hitch-Hikers's Guide to the Galaxy fans will probably remember..... DISASTER Area's Tax Returns:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQjgMF_20dE

Disaters Area's Tax Returns:

This has not, however, stopped their earnings from pushing back the boundaries of hypermathematics, and their chief research accountant has recently been appointed Professor of Neomathematics at the the University of Maximegalon, in recognition of both his General and his Special Theories of Disaster Area Tax Returns, in which he proves that the whole fabric of the space-time continuum is not merely curved, it is in fact totally bent.

[quoted from above clip (3:11) and https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Disaster_Area ]

We get to stop using “yet” about a lot of things here very soon…

Oh that other word, “soon”.

been hearing that since 2015 too. Nothing here with the taxes. Zero of what was promised. Again.

Yet his 2016-2020 taxes were reviewed and released no such thing found or claimed. What a waste of time.

Except the IRS didn’t audit Trump while he was president.

And about these obviously false tax returns

Oddly the liberal media even isn’t saying that. Just you.

So your definition if "paying" conveniently leaves out the part where he gets it all back.

It’s how paying “estimated” tax works.

You guys are ridiculous in your obsessive need to “get” Trump. There is zero there, let it go.

called overpayment).

which requires a payment to be made.

It’s in the name: overpayment.

to make an overpayment requires a payment to have been made.

Nemo: We previously thought that IRS rules were good enough and that no president would be so craven. We were wrong.

I read the article in question days ago. Black is using a quote from one part of the article where it says that Trump is using tax mechanisms as all rich people do, such as offsetting gains with losses. It's a general argument.

But that shouldn't be confused with saying Trump did nothing wrong. Another example off the top of my head is Trump's cost of good sold (COGS) figures which get deducted from income. Trump is claiming nearly $30 million in COGS for....a real estate office.

Just what goods is his office making that costs them $150 million over 5 years?

Stuff like this needs to be researched via audits which never happened.

The very rich escape paying a fair share of taxes. More pay capital gains tax at the lower rates than income tax.

Trump paid zero income taxes 2016-2020.

Blacklabel: Nothing here with the taxes.

His tax returns haven't been released yet, but they will in a few days.

Blacklabel: then we find he did pay, the IRS processed his returns and in some years they gave his entire payment back because he didn’t owe anything per tax laws.

If you paid an estimated $10 million in taxes that you got back at the end of the year because you actually turned a loss, do you go around telling people you paid $10 million in taxes or $0?

So, he was lying when he said his taxes were under audit. In fact the ONE year that the IRS began an audit (2016) was started the same day that the Committee requested the docs, and it wasn’t finished before he left office because there are FAR too many red flags in need of investigation. 

Hmmm…

He lied about being a successful business man

No, because not only does he have and own more real estate than all of us on JT combined, how many failed business people can have a casino and tower written in their names? Not many.

(it makes no sense to take huge personal loses since personal income taxes cannot go below zero). When the US economy that was rocking full-speed ahead on a combination of Obama policies and meth level tax cuts for the rich, Dotard was STILL losing money. He is truly America’s biggest loser.

If he were such a loser then why are the Democrats hounding him so much? Usually if you’re a loser people don’t hound you for 6 years and have the intel agency involved in it.

He almost certainly cheated on his income taxes WHILE he was president (Jack Smith: call your office.)

I wonder how many people in congress cheated on their taxes?

Even when he did pay taxes, his effective tax rate was less than 4%. Explain that to your working-class rubes, Don. 

I would love to attempt to see him rationalize how it’s fair for a “super-rich” (he’s not it seems) “major business figure” who was also POTUS, to pay less in taxes as a percentage - and in many years in absolute dollars - than the coal miners he claims to love

I think you seriously worry a bit too much about the guy.

One would have to be delusional bordering on needing an intervention to believe:

A. These losses were intentional rather than the result of incompetence. “No, you see what happened was he MEANT to lose money. And he intentionally meant not just to reduce his taxable income to zero, but to reduce it to several million -sometimes several tends of millions - I’d dollars below zero year after year after year. It’s not because he’s an incompetent buffoon wasting away the family fortune. It’s because he’s playing 3-D tax chess!”

B. He’s not committing tax evasion. Millions of dollars in cash donations with no receipts. As someone said on the news last night: “Lots of people make cash donations with no records. The jails are full of them.” Yep.

Trump protected his business and not paying his creditors by filing for bankruptcy five times.

Good. We need more laws like this to protect ourselves from wanna-be dictators like Trump....

One thing we did learn from his taxes is that he is consistent - a consistent loser...

No wonder - he lost the House in 2018, the WH and Senate in 2020 and his candidates like Lake, Masters, Oz, Walker, etc. all lost in 2022...

Add in the 61 times he lost in court proving fraud, and you have the Guinness record for losing...

And the desperate claims here that "he did nothing wrong" ring hollow - he failed to claim a loan from a North Korean affiliated company in 2018 and we know he was part of the tax fraud at the Trump Org - his black sharpie was on the checks...

Moreover, an extensive audit is needed to check all the over and under-valuing Cohen has testified was part of Trump's tax scam.

This is just the beginning - his taxes will no doubt generate additional charges and indictments...

He lied about being a successful business man

No, because not only does he have and own more real estate than all of us on JT combined, how many failed business people can have a casino and tower written in their names? Not many.

You know the pro-Trump crowd is desperate when they cite as evidence of his business success....a casino that went bankrupt....

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/apr/08/atlantic-city-trump-ghost-town-gambling-brian-rose-photographer

Next they'll be telling us what a genius he is at running an airline and university...

ROFL...

If my dad had left me $400 million dollars decades ago I'm pretty sure I'd have my name on a casino, too.

Nothing to hide, nothing to fear.

Why complain about transparency for public officials?

The easiest solution here is to throw out the existing tax code and start with a simple flat tax.

No need for complex audits when the tax system is dead simple, and the incentives and opportunities to avoid tax are eliminated.

But yes, the vested interests will all complain about such a suggestion because they all want to keep their favourite carve outs in the tax code for their own personal benefit.

Same thing in Japan. Mortgage loan deductions for the well off, higher furusato Nozei limits for those on higher incomes, loopholes in inheritance tax (wouldn’t be needed if they just abolished the stupid inheritance tax altogether like enlightened countries such as Sweden).

IRS should investigate the members of Congress. It's amazing how many of them become rich after being elected. Maybe it's just a coincidence?

Trump knows how to rake in a dollar and hide a buck.

Trump does not own a casino. Founded in 1995 as Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts by Donald Trump, who after 2004 held only minority ownership. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2004, 2009, and 2014. Carl Icahn acquired the two remaining Trump casinos in 2016 from the last of their many bankruptcies and owned the building.

You guys are ridiculous in your obsessive need to “get” Trump. There is zero there, let it go.

At some point, you're going to have to stop and ask why the IRS didn't audit Trump for at least the first two years of his presidency. The IRS is part of the executive branch, which the president is head of.

You're also going to have to ask how one takes business tax deductions on their personal income taxes, when they've claimed they've stepped away from their businesses.

You're also going to have to ask why Trump refused to release his taxes, and lied about him being under audit was the reason he wouldn't release.

Before we make big claims about how there is nothing wrong with his taxes, let's remember the CFO pleaded guilty to tax fraud, and Trump's signature was on the checks.

Good article talking about the red flags from the report:

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/22/red-flags-trump-taxes-00075198

Some clips:

"It also found Trump deducting expenses — $342,182 in 2020 — for a single family home deemed a rental property that had no income associated with it."

"In 2016, for example, the filing for DT Endeavor I LLC (aviation) reported gross income of $680,886 and expenses that also totaled $680,886. Aside from the unlikelihood of income and costs exactly equaling, it raises the question of whether someone would bother with a business in which their expenses consumed every dollar they made."

One would have to be delusional bordering on needing an intervention to believe:

A. These losses were intentional rather than the result of incompetence. “No, you see what happened was he MEANT to lose money. And he intentionally meant not just to reduce his taxable income to zero, but to reduce it to several million -sometimes several tends of millions - I’d dollars below zero year after year after year. It’s not because he’s an incompetent buffoon wasting away the family fortune. It’s because he’s playing 3-D tax chess!”

B. He’s not committing tax evasion. Millions of dollars in cash donations with no receipts. As someone said on the news last night: “Lots of people make cash donations with no records. The jails are full of them.” Yep.

Now that you know Trump is not a criminal and the Dems lost once again, can we move forward and focus on the mounting failures of the current administration? By the way, the Dems should be careful for what they wish for now. They already screwed themselves by blowing up the Senate filibuster rule.

The democrats control the WH and the Senate and the Republicans have a smaller minority in the House than they were campaigning for. Some because of the Trump failures of candidates he backed.

There was no predicted Big Red Wave. More like a ripple in the sand. Normal mid-term elections.

Wow, the tax returns really expose how poor a businessman Trump actually was.

Remember when we told the righties that, and they put him up on a pedestal like some sort of business genius? Remember when it turns out he's been losing money all along? Remember when we were right, and the Right was wrong?

The democrats control the WH and the Senate and the Republicans have a smaller minority in the House

BUT, they control the House, FULL STOP!

There was no predicted Big Red Wave. More like a ripple in the sand. Normal mid-term elections.

The biggest midterm failure in 100 years was a "normal mid-term election"?

BUT, they control the House, FULL STOP!

They would if they were unified, but with your RINO vs MAGA civil war, the democrats actually have more votes than either of those groups. it's why they can't even choose a leader, McCarthy can't get the votes, even though his party has the majority. Whomever ends up getting the speakership is probably going to need some Democratic votes. Or maybe the democrats just decide on someone tolerable, find a few RINOs who agree, and they choose the next leader leaving MAGA out altogether.

Not much of a majority, is it.

No, because not only does he have and own more real estate than all of us on JT combined, how many failed business people can have a casino and tower written in their names? Not many.

His father was the biggest real estate magnate in NYC, and he took many business ventures and made the majority of them fail.

Trump epitomizes late stage capitalist failing forward for incompetent East Coast European immigrant elites.

He did extend his failing forward to the presidency, which he also failed at, so he can be recognized for his extraordinary failure and lack of any contribution to the public welfare?

In that respect he has excelled extraordinarily.

Now that you know Trump is not a criminal and the Dems lost once again, can we move forward

No, we don't know that. No the Dems did not lose, much less "again", and no, we will not be moving forward.

There is ABUNDANT evidence that trump is a criminal in this case alone (not even getting into his MULTIPLE criminal investigations in other areas.) We will be examining his taxes as if he is having the colonsocopy of his life.

The GQP has a TINY majority in one House of one branch of government. FULL STOP.

Kevin the dolt is SINO, FULL STOP.

On this day, 12/23 he doesn't have 218. FULL STOP.

There WILL be a reckoning of Trump's taxes, both not being audited in accordance with IRS practice (who recommended that?) and his obvious tax fraud. FULL. STOP.

bass4funk

where was that Big Red Wave you made so many comments about this year? The Big Bang Theory went flat and per usual the House changed hands. Nothing different than last time.

They would if they were unified,

But they don’t control the House, the GOP does.

but with your RINO vs MAGA civil war, the democrats actually have more votes than either of those groups.

Can’t get anything done without money

it's why they can't even choose a leader, *

They will.

Not much of a majority, is it.

Yes, even with one, that’s it, full control. The Dems are the official minority in the House. Just ask Omar and Swalwell.

where was that Big Red Wave you made so many comments about this year?

I also said that the GOP would get the House and I was right.

The GOP clutching at small gains.

Any time, ANY TIME, the Democrats want to get something accomplished, they will waltz across the aisle and scoop up the 5 votes they need and Kevin (or whomever sticks the shank in his back) will be left with his resting idiot face (his normal face) and nothing to show for it.

Trump has suffered a number of recent serious defeats. The Jan 6 investigation. The release of his tax returns. Corruption and fraud in his business organisation. Desantis is ahead of him on double-figure polls. Public reaction to his dinner with an anti-Semitic and white supremacist. Stealing and concealing office secret documents. A bad year for Trump just like the last one.

Trump has suffered a number of recent serious defeats. The Jan 6 investigation. The release of his tax returns. Corruption and fraud in his business organisation. Desantis is ahead of him on double-figure polls. Public reaction to his dinner with an anti-Semitic and white supremacist. Stealing and concealing office secret documents. A bad year for Trump just like the last one

And yet, he always bounces back. Every single time.

And yet, he always bounces back. Every single time.

Probably not this time and probably not in 2024.

When you own a business, you understand that it is possible to reinvest most profits into it, which can come as compensation for employees. It is possible to manipulate the tax liability of a business and for self-employed individuals, it is possible to manipulate the taxes owed. I know this is possible for small companies. For a multinational company, it shouldn't be THAT hard to shift income to lower tax location and increase business spending in higher-tax locations.

With all that said, I find it very hard to believe that the Trump organization didn't break multiple laws, based on how much lying exPrez does. Most of the lying is probably in the under-reporting of asset values to the Govt and over-reporting of asset values used for bank loans and as "deal" collateral. The IRS should look for those discrepancies.

Congress should add another campaign law that mandates the last 7 tax returns for President and Vice Presidential candidates be released for public views once selected by a party to be on the ballot.

I don't want a President who is afraid to share his tax information.

This ia precisely why the GOP has worked hard to gut IRS funding. And they did it by convincing the Moms and Pops that the IRS will be coming for them right after they finish investigating a $105 million loss carryover by a billionaire.

"And as soon as we're done with Trump we will head over to the taco cart and investigate them."

Hobbling the IRS will pay much, much, much higher dividends for the rich than the working class.