BUMMED OUT: One term tax cheat, fake billionaire Florida Man trumped by Biden again
President Joe Biden does a crazy thing: he pays his taxes.
He pays them in a straightforward way without any misrepresentations or shenanigans.
The same cannot be said for Florida Guy, Donald Trump.
We already knew from reporting by the New York Times in 2020 that Trump has often engaged in questionable tax activity, exaggerating real estate values when it suited him – such as when he sought loans, the basis for Letitia James’s case against the Trump Organization – and devaluing properties for tax purposes.
Reporting from journalists like Adam Davidson of the New Yorker, meanwhile, has indicated how Trump’s operations in foreign countries and with foreign entities in the United States often approaches or possibly steps over the legal line (I vote for steps over), potentially violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (which he talked about repealing as president) and perhaps acting as a conduit for money-laundering.
In fact, if Trump’s operations in Azerbaijan, Panama, “Little Moscow” in Florida, et cetera, are not centers for money-laundering, they sure do a good job looking like them.
And we know from the tax release that he kept foreign bank accounts while president.
His only Azerbaijan business was the Trump Tower Baku that was, almost certainly, a money laundering front for Iran's Revolutionary Guard.
He claimed to get out of that business entirely at the end of 2016. So, tax credit in 2020 is quite interesting. https://t.co/LvXERBsDPt
— Adam Davidson @adamdavidson@journa.host (@adamdavidson) December 30, 2022
Experts have seen other red flags in the wake of the release as well, including a largely unsubstantiated loss claim of $105 million in 2015 and reported loans to his children that may have really been gifts.
Yet with some 500 businesses operating under the Trump banner, navigating cash flows and potential wrongdoing has been purposely made difficult.
It also doesn’t help that the IRS wasn’t actually auditing Trump until Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal requested his tax returns in 2019 – evidence that the oversight was in fact necessary.
Trump pays taxes in China & has a bank account there
He gives fake loans to his kids to avoid the gift tax
He wrote off sex w Stormy as a $130K business expense
He didn’t donate his presidential salary & gave 0 to charity in 2020
Anyone shocked America 1st was a big ass lie?
— Lindy Li (@lindyli) December 31, 2022
Newsweek compared Trump’s taxes from 2015-2020 with Joe Biden’s and found that Biden paid over $4 million more.
Count that as another 4 million reasons to like Joe Biden more than Trump.
“From 2015 to 2020,” Newsweek noted, “Trump paid $1,776,342 in taxes while Biden paid $5,914,579. Trump earned $28,838,596 in the two years he reported positive income and Biden made $17,999,610 over the entire six years.”
The positive income years were in the minority – overall, Trump reported losses of some $53 million over the six years.
His DJT Holdings, meanwhile, reported losing over $313 million.
What a successful businessman!
For all the years Trump didn't pay taxes, is he a tax cheat or a complete loser who constantly loses money?
— Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) December 30, 2022
Most of the Biden income came from his memoir, Promise Me, Dad.
Other years he was paying taxes on his salary.
While Uncle Joe typically paid a rate of about 23%, Trump – when he paid taxes at all – was paying around 3-4%.
At some point, when can we stop calling this P.T. Barnum of business and politics a billionaire?
His taxes are so convoluted that he could be a billionaire – CPA Jonathan Meadows told MarketWatch, “You can lose a lot of money on paper and return capital to investors but still have cash flow. Bottom line: In order to generate these kinds of losses, you need to be super rich. It’s not a poor man’s game.”
But he could also be a bum who lives off the free flow of money within his grasp.
All native New Yorkers knew Donald John Trump was always a broke bum. It’s sad the majority of this country didn’t care to see this and voted for him (especially 53% of White Women).
— The Chanteezy Is Real ♉️ (@iamchanteezy) December 30, 2022
Forbes continues to list him as a “billionaire,” but it truly seems at this point that they’re just making those numbers up out their ass.
Trump’s golf courses are suspected of losing money overall and his real estate ventures are often failures, including the D.C. hotel that lost some $70 million.
His list of failures is extensive – from his failed football team to his airline to his casinos.
Had he simply invested the money he received from daddy in an index fund, he probably would be a real billionaire.
And maybe then he’d pay some fucking taxes – like the rest of us.
Dirty Donald surely hates Ross, but you can help him go after the entire Trump Crime Family by joining him on Twitter! @RossRosenfeld
