http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-02/clinton-campaign-admits-hillary...

"Well, this is awkward."

were incurred. If it was depreciation on real estate, capital investment, etc., he might have been able to pass it through to his personal income tax status, but we lack details on how Trump arrived at a $915 million loss in a single tax year. The response to "So are you in favor of eliminating carry-forwards" is "No, but a $915 million loss makes us wonder how good your business acumen is. What actually happened in 1995?"

I'm an S-Corp and I have even done a carry forward on a loss.

However, there are limits to what is reasonable. And I am sorry, a nearly $1B loss is not reasonable. The guy is literally profiting from a loss. Because I will guarantee you that in addition to the write off, every single one of his creditors took huge "haircuts" and he paid them far less than he owed them. So, my bet is that if we could see the full story, I am sure there was a lot of hokey pokey as he turned himself around.

My bet is that he double dipped, claiming one amount while actually having to pay out less than he claimed as the loss.
Now, that would be illegal, but hard to prove with out testimony from all his creditors.

Regardless, the problem is it's a serious abuse of the system and is symptomatic of the problems with the current tax code.

The guy claims to make hundreds of millions per year, but he plays a bunch of games to reduce it to under $50M/year and so pays nothing.

So here is the thing, if he tries to fight back on this, the proper response is: "Something is fishy with what you are doing, you must show us your tax returns so the people can understand what you are doing."

It's not that hard to smash him on this effectively.

The problem is HRC and her team are morons and horrible campaigners and "guilty of many of the same things"

What we need is an untarnished candidate who can claim the moral high ground on this issue, and still be business friendly.

So she will be throwing mud uphill.

I'll never forget her words, back in 2002, "mom, we just submitted a very aggressive tax return and we owe nothing on the half million he made last year." I know a half million is a drop in the Trump/Clinton bucket, but when I owe $8,000 in income taxes, paying nothing on a half mil doesn't seem fair to me.

that definitely deserves our attention; although for reasons well beyond the 2016 Presidential election (IMO).

Frankly, I don't see Dems as having much of an opportunity to use DT's legal tax deductions against him. The NYT admitted that, according to the documentation they obtained, they had no proof of illegality.

Heck, in our small way, we use real estate tax deductions for rental properties. And we don't feel 'guilty' doing so. At all.

I'm 'guessing' that one reason the corporatist MSM has seized upon this talking point, is that it allows them to push for Bowles-Simpson's proposals on so-called tax reform--eliminating tax 'loopholes' (such as the tax shelter for Group Health insurance, used by lower and middle income individuals, as well as the well-heeled) in exchange for slashing the marginal tax rates for corporations and 'the wealthy.'

So, I'll definitely be watching how these bipartisan negotiations unfold.

For the record, the following top marginal tax rates for individuals were proposed:

33% -- Donald Trump, in a speech at the Economic Club Of New York (September 15, 2016)

33% -- Paul Ryan, also speaking at the Economic Club Of New York (September 19, 2016)

Here's an excerpt from Speaker Ryan's speech,

“We want to make our tax code simpler, flatter, fairer. Bring the number of tax brackets down from 7 to 3. Lower rates for everybody. Bring the top individual rate down to 33 percent. Close those special-interest loopholes. Consolidate those deductions and credits. Make it so simple that the average American can do their taxes on a postcard. But also cut taxes on small business. Lower their top rate to 25 percent. Cut our corporate tax rate from 35 to 20 percent. Stop taxing people when they bring money into our country. Stop taxing new investments. Don’t punish people for saving and investing. Reward them. The Tax Foundation says this plan would create 1.7 million new jobs right here in America.

But the kicker is that in June of 2014, Senator Ron Wyden disclosed to WSJ's Washington Bureau Chief, Gerald Seib, that he had negotiated lowering the top marginal tax rate for individuals and corporations to 24%.

At that time, Senator Wyden was the Chairperson of the Senate Finance Committee; he is currently Ranking Member of same.

Senator Orrin Hatch, who was the Ranking Member in 2014, is the current Chairperson of the Senate Finance Committee.

Regarding FSC's supposedly call for raising taxes on the wealthy--I say, Poppycock!

Mollie

“I believe in the redemptive powers of a dog’s love. It is in recognition of each dog’s potential to lift the human spirit, and, therefore, to change society for the better, that I fight to make sure every street dog has its day.”
--Stasha Wong, Secretary, Save Our Street Dogs (SOSD)

National Mill Dog Rescue (NMDR) - Dogs Available For Adoption

Update: Misty May has been adopted. Yeah!

Truly disgusting to hear about Trump avoiding taxes through loopholes and investigating trade deals in Cuba.

I mean it's not like Bill Clinton ever pardoned Marc Rich or anything... Oh he did? That's OK, it's only bad when other people do it.

The rest of us have precious little to say about it, which is one of the many reasons we need a revolution....

On this issue and went into some of the technicalities involved with Trump's tax minimization (really avoidance scheme).

http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2016/10/03/trump-1978-taxes

Background:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/03/art-of-the-steal-this-i...

Trump’s gambit is easy to explain in plain English, but for tax wonks the short version is this: Trump combined tax benefits under Section 1231 of the Internal Revenue Code with the exception provisions in Section 108.

The story of Trump’s income tax-free life begins in 1990 with Trump’s well-documented mismanagement of his casinos and his admission that he paid far too much for “trophy properties” like the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan and 23 worn-out jetliners for the short-lived Trump Shuttle airline.

These mistakes created about $1 billion of “net operating losses,” or NOLs, under Section 1231 of the tax code.

NOLs are incredibly valuable. These tax losses can be used to offset salaries, business profits, and income from, say, a television show or making neckties in China. Thanks to his $916 million of NOLs, Trump could earn much over 18 years in salaries, profits, and interest, but pay no income taxes.

Net operating losses should reflect economic damage suffered by the owner of the NOLs. But Trump found a way to gain from these losses by spreading the costs around to bankers and investors.

NOLs can be used right away or be applied to reduce taxes from two previous years and up to 15 future years. In contrast, Congress requires that real estate be depreciated for tax purposes over 39 years. The faster a tax break becomes available, the greater its value. Trump’s advisers found a way to convert real-estate depreciation into NOLs that were much more flexible and could be used faster.

Trump claimed to be worth billions in 1990, just as he does now, yet he could not pay his bills. He stiffed hundreds of small-business suppliers, including those for the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, which will go out of business next week. In all he owed more $3 billion, nearly a third of his debt secured by nothing more substantial than his signature on bank loan papers.

This guy isn't some small business owner. He's a trust fund brat who has a long history of burning investors, creditors and contractors (including many actual small business owners). At least in terms of the values that I was raised with there was an expectation that privilege came with a debt to society. A guy like Trump has none of those values.

The guy has taken a lot more than he has given back to this country.

The same could be said of the Clintons.

The question of scale here is a big part of the issue. This is also a guy who wants to eliminate the estate tax on all of that income that he has been able to accumulate tax-free -- effectively millions of ordinary income earners with less capacity to pay are being forced to pick-up his slack.

As far as the Dems leadership position goes, I think this is all about posturing, and if Donald Trump wasn't involved, they wouldn't care. And if he loses, they will probably drop the whole issue. One way or another we do have to find ways to finance our debt and federal investments, and before we start cutting into Social Security or the safety net, I think it's obvious that more vigorous efforts need to be made to make people like Trump and the Clintons contribute more substantially to the federal treasury and limit access to these kind of loopholes and tax avoidance strategies.