CNN Opinion: Trump's tax returns are much to do about nothings

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/30/opinions/trump-tax-returns-
mccaffery/index.html

Editor’s Note: Edward J. McCaffery is Robert C. Packard Trustee Chair in
Law and a professor of law, economics and political science at the
University of Southern California. He is the author of “Fair Not Flat: How
to Make the Tax System Better and Simpler” and founder of the People’s Tax
Page. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more
opinion at CNN.

CNN
—
Hallelujah! The House Ways and Means Committee has released former
President Donald Trump’s tax returns from 2015 to 2020. If nothing else,
this will – let us hope! – release me from being asked about the release
of Trump’s tax returns, as I have been for over six years now.

There’s plenty we already knew. In 2020, the New York Times analyzed 20
years of Trump’s tax returns, including some of the ones released Friday.
And earlier this month, the House Ways and Means Committee released two
reports that found the Internal Revenue Service failed to audit Trump in
the first two years of his presidency despite the IRS’ mandatory audit
program for US presidents, and summarized in detail the top-line numbers
for the full six years.

What we got from this latest data dump is thousands of pages of returns,
exhibits, schedules and such. Dedicated accountants and journalists will
pore over these documents and we are sure to see plenty of headlines like
“Top 10 surprises in Trump’s tax returns” in the coming days and weeks.

But we have long known the basic story. Trump is a bad businessman who
seems to lose money on everything from casinos to golf clubs, with steaks
and vodka and even a so-called university in between. So the main reason
he often pays so little, if any, in taxes, is that he often reports a
loss. He also lost other people’s money and got big tax breaks for that.

Trump has benefitted from the huge head start given to him by his father
Fred Trump, which continued to pay dividends with large capital gains from
the sale of inherited property in 2018 (leading to Trump paying some taxes
that year – just under $1 million). And like his father, Trump emerges as
an aggressive and rather crude tax avoider, using standard tactics like
putting the kids on the payroll, writing off personal expenses,
overvaluing in-kind charitable contributions and so on. Friday’s release
has already shown, for example, that Trump did not donate his presidential
salary to charities in 2020, as he had promised – he made no charitable
gifts at all in 2020, when he paid no taxes.

Trump’s taxes often push the lines of propriety, and his company’s
sometimes cross them, as we now know from the Manhattan DA’s criminal
conviction of Trump Organization.

Nothing new there.

But sometimes nothing is the story, like the dog that does not bark. So
here are some nothings we can resolve to do something about in 2023.

Nothing is what Trump paid in federal income taxes in 2020, and in many
other years. Given his massive and mysterious income tax refund of nearly
$73 million in 2010, Trump may not have paid net positive income taxes in
his life. And he is not alone. Many billionaires pay no income tax, and
many do so perfectly legally.

Nothing is also what the IRS did in regards to Trump’s tax returns during
his first two years in office until the Democrats took power and forced
them to do something starting in 2019.

That’s unacceptable. When the IRS fails to audit a prominent rich person,
whom they have to examine – whether that’s because it’s too hard, they
don’t have the time or for any other reason – why would the rich pay
anything in tax at all?

That’s a trick question: the rich already have ways to pay nothing in
taxes, see the first nothing above.

And the simple math of the matter is that if the rich pay nothing, then
the not-rich pay everything.

Which leads to two final nothings.

Nothing is what Congress has done, over many decades of Democratic and
Republican leadership alike, about getting the rich to really pay their
fair share of taxes.

And nothing is what Republicans seem to want to give to the IRS, which
lacked the resources to do something about getting the rich to comply with
the law. That is crazy too.

Maybe, just maybe, 2023 will be a better year for all. I can write nothing
at all about Trump’s tax returns. And we can all celebrate Congress doing
something (by providing nearly $80 billion to strengthen the IRS as part
of the Inflation Reduction Act – a good start) about making the wealthiest
Americans pay… something.

That would be better than nothing, and more helpful than yet another Trump
tax return story.


--
"LOCKDOWN", left-wing COVID fearmongering. 95% of COVID infections
recover with no after effects.

No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.
Officially made Nancy Pelosi a two-time impeachment loser.

Donald J. Trump, cheated out of a second term by fraudulent "mail-in"
ballots. Report voter fraud: sf.n...@mail.house.gov

Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden
fiasco, President Trump.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.

President Trump boosted the economy, reduced illegal invasions, appointed
dozens of judges and three SCOTUS justices.