Trump and his tax returns..

[Admin]

And, of course, for an in-depth look at real-estate tax loops and tricks, there is no better article than the following:

When Mitt Romney released his tax returns in 2012, the average American got a rare inside look at how the wealthiest avoid taxes. Americans learned how private equity and hedge fund managers get huge tax breaks, such as the carried-interest loophole that allows ordinary income to be treated as capital gains.

Now, Donald Trump has created an uproar by being the first presidential candidate since Richard Nixon to refuse to release his tax returns. He claims, implausibly, that he can’t do so because he is under an IRS audit. Many speculate that there’s a different reason—Romney has even blasted him, saying his returns would show a “bombshell of unusual size.”

One thing is certain. If Trump’s full tax returns are ever released, the country would get an up-close look at how Trump’s empire sits upon a real-estate tax racket, composed of a princely pile of tax breaks, loopholes, and deferrals that make wealthy real-estate developers even wealthier by eliminating most of their taxes. For Trump, it’s a point of pride: “I fight like hell to pay as little as possible,” he said in August 2015.

Trump’s Riches and the Real-Estate Tax Racket

[Martin K]

People want change, said Farage (the Brexit guy). But why do they think the kind of change coming from the likes of Romney, let alone Trump, is going to benefit them? Trump and Romney are no turkey's voting for Christmas..

Really curious.

[Admin]

No industry is treated more favorably by the federal tax code than real estate. Developers can write off the depreciation of their buildings on very favorable schedules, even while their properties are increasing in value. They can deduct interest paid on the financing of their properties, too. And they can avoid paying taxes when selling properties that have gone up in value by simply swapping properties with someone else, a massive real-estate loophole called a like-kind exchange. It’s no wonder that the average real-estate firm pays just over 1 percent in income taxes, compared with an 11 percent average across all industries.

This highly favorable tax treatment leads many experts to speculate that, on any given year, big developers like Donald Trump do not pay any income tax. That speculation was confirmed this past weekend after The New York Times obtained parts of Trump’s 1995 tax returns, which showed that in that year he deducted nearly $1 billion in losses and used a tax mechanism called “net operating losses” to carry forward those losses and wipe out his tax income bill for as many as 18 years..

How the Real Estate Lobby -- and Trump -- Got a Huge Tax Break

[Admin]

He's portraying himself as a master accountant, but does he actually know the difference between revenue and earnings? It doesn't look so. Trump claimed his 2015 income was $694M, however..

The FEC financial disclosure form that Trump referred to at the debate requires federal candidates to state rough approximations of their income, assets, and liabilities. Many items are listed within a range, say between $50,000 and $100,000. Totaling up Trump's reported income on that form at the highest end of the ranges does yield a figure near $694 million. (At the lower end, it's closer to $600 million.) But the income listed on the form appears to be largely revenue—that is, the money a particular enterprise generated, not the profit—and not Trump's personal takeaway.

The $694 million isn't what Trump pocketed at the end of the day; it's how much cash his various companies brought in before they had to cover expenses. The Office of Government Ethics guide for filling out the form even explicitly states "definition of investment income for purposes of financial disclosure is not tied to the Internal Revenue Service's definition of income for tax purposes." There is no telling from this form what Trump truly made as income.

But documents he filed overseas indicate there could be a great discrepancy between what he claimed at the debate and what he banked. These filings in the United Kingdom cover the operations of two Scottish golf resorts, one at Turnberry and one at Aberdeen. These courses are major enterprises in Trump's wide-ranging international golf empire. According to his FEC financial disclosure form, which was submitted in May, Trump collected $296 million in "golf related revenue"—a full 42 percent of the income he cited in the debate.

But this figure did not take into account the costs of running all his courses and resorts. Most of Trump's businesses, including his golf courses, do not have to publicly disclose how much revenue or profit they yield annually. But there are three exceptions: his two Scottish golf courses and one Irish course. Corporations in the United Kingdom and Ireland must submit public reports that list revenue, expenses, and profit.

Trump's FEC financial form noted that his two Scottish golf courses earned him a combined $23 million in "golf related revenue" last year, with Turnberry pulling in $18.1 million and Aberdeen making $4.8 million. But the public filings the courses submitted in the United Kingdom tell a much different story. Trump's prized course at Turnberry—where he made a much ballyhooed appearance right before the Brexit vote—reported $16.8 million in revenue in 2015 and $18.6 million in expenses.

When interest, depreciation, and currency exchange losses are factored in, Trump's Turnberry course lost over $2 million in 2015. And the corporate filings in the United Kingdom show that Trump's Aberdeen course lost about $1.6 million. That means that Trump's reported income on the FEC financial disclosure forms regarding just these two projects is $26 million more than what they actually made. If these courses are representative of Trump's overall finances—$23 million in "golf related revenue" is really a $3 million loss—his declared $296 million in total "golf related revenue" may well be highly overstated. Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks did not respond to a request for comment.

New Records Suggest Donald Trump Misled the Public About His Income | Mother Jones

[Admin]

Cohen, Manafort, and Weisselberg’s testimony threatens Trump at his very core. It threatens to reveal the layers of Russia-connected money laundering, tax evasion, and decades of conspiracy that turned Trump from a bankrupt also-ran into an oligarch-powered “success.” It’s a threat to not just Trump’s office, but to his money, his company, his image, and to everything he owns. 

A series of “deep reports” by the Financial Times in 2016 showed how Trump, bankrupted by his epic failure in Atlantic City, unable to secure more loans to support his lavish lifestyle, and hovering on the brink of being booted from his own “tower,” made critical connections that pulled him back into the sun. With the help of intermediaries like Felix Sater and Sergei Millian, Trump turned his organization from a bankrupt real estate firm that was unable to fund the building of a pup tent, into a powerhouse money-laundering firm that saw hundreds of millions pouring in from Russia and former Soviet territory. That transition was directly connected with one of the people talking to Robert Mueller right now.

Mr Millian claimed Mr Trump then introduced him to Michael Cohen, the Trump Organisation’s chief legal counsel, who granted him rights to market Trump Organisation properties in Russia and the former Soviet Union. “You could say I was their exclusive broker,” he told Ria. “Then, in 2007-2008, dozens of Russians bought apartments in Trump properties in the US.” He later told ABC television that the Trump Organisation had received “hundreds of millions of dollars” through deals with Russian businessmen.

Trump’s “genius” for selling New York and Florida real estate at ridiculous markups actually disguises systematic money-laundering in which the lax regulations around real estate allowed him to bring in illegal funds from Russia filtered through LLCs and banks in Cyprus. While Trump’s personal wealth is in doubt, there seems little doubt that the money involved in these transactions was eventually in the billions.

The details of this money-laundering operation were explicitly spelled out in Mueller’s indictment and conviction of long-time Trump associate and campaign chair Paul Manafort. The eventual agreement reached with Manafort isn’t just shocking in his level of agreed-on cooperation, and the detailed way in which Mueller has limited Trump’s ability to pardon Manafort’s crimes, but in the explicitness with which it describes how Mueller’s money-laundering for Oleg Deripaska worked. By most accounts, replacing Manafort’s name with Trump’s and Deripaska’s with any number of Russian billionaires could describe the majority of Trump’s income, at least over the critical period of his recovery from bankruptcy.

Manafort’s agreement to flip was a shock to Trump. Both he and Rudy Giuliani were still praising Manafort just hours before word emerged that a deal was in the works. Even when Manafort walked into the courthouse, few people realized that he was not only signing a deal to cooperate in full, on any topic, but was ready to deliver under-oath testimony to a closed courtroom. And Manafort’s deal included massive, personal losses—agreements to hand over most of his real estate, cash, and other assets.

The seizures that Manafort faced scared Donald Trump sh#tless. Manafort’s cooperation agreement came on Sept. 14. It took exactly one week before the New York Times ran with a planted story turning a joke made by Rosenstein into a scheme to overthrow the government. And two days after that, before the White House picked up the phone to announce that Rosenstein was resigning. Or had resigned. Will resign. Was definitely resigning.

The scariest thing about Rod Rosenstein isn’t that he protected the continued existence of Robert Mueller’s investigation: it’s that he signed an order expanding the scope of that investigation to include the money-laundering scheme on which Paul Manafort was convicted. Most of the document that contained that expansion was redacted. It’s not hard to guess what was under all that black ink: authority to investigate Trump’s business dealings. 

This One Piece of Paper Threatens Trump at His Very Core — And Explains Why He Needs Rosenstein Out Now | Alternet

And Trump needs that authority killed, ASOP.

[Admin]

Why doesn't he allow what all other presidents have done before they were elected the last decades, let us look into his tax returns..

The IRS, according to the Times, didn’t really notice it. Trump’s parents transferred more than $1 billion to their children and paid about $52.2 million in taxes. Given the relevant tax rates on gifts and inheritances, they should have paid about $550 million — 10 times more. The Times didn’t see Trump’s own tax returns. But the reporting, which was based on documents, records, and interviews pertaining to Trump’s father’s financial empire, suggests that Trump’s actions on paying taxes weren’t always aboveboard, even if they were too long ago to be criminally prosecuted. According to the Times, when Donald Trump’s finances were “crumbling” in the 1980s and ’90s, Fred Trump’s companies increased distributions to him and his siblings. From 1989 to 1992, for example, four entities created by Fred paid Donald $8.3 million in today’s dollars. When Donald Trump’s finances were at their worst in 1990, Fred Trump’s income shot up to $49,638,928 and earned him a $12.2 million tax bill. The publication reports that there are indications Fred Trump “wanted plenty of cash on hand to bail out his son if need be.”

Donald Trump tax evasion: New York Times alleges sketchy tax schemes - Vox

This also busts the myth of the self-made billionaire.

[Admin]

We all have an inkling, but David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has written two books about Trump, has a bit more insight than we do. And he recently shared some of his thoughts on the matter with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: “Well, Chris, there isn’t now and there never has been any evidence, verifiable evidence, Donald is a billionaire. He’s not a billionaire,” Johnston replied. “That’s one thing he’s worried about.” Oh, that would be embarrassing. You mean the guy who hawked steaks for Sharper Image like a poor man’s Ron Popeil isn’t really a billionaire? Shocking. Also … “Secondly, he’s worried that an audit will show tax cheating,” he continued. “Let’s not forget, Donald was tried twice for tax fraud, civil tax fraud, and was found in both cases to have engaged in fraud,” he reminded. “He was excoriated by the judges in both cases.”   “His own tax lawyer testified against him,” he continued. “His tax lawyer said, ‘That’s my signature on the tax return, but I did not prepare that tax return.’ That’s a very strong badge of fraud.”

Trump biographer David Cay Johnston explains why the president is so afraid of releasing his tax returns: ‘A very strong badge of fraud’ – Alternet.org

[Admin]

LOL

We just got more information on President Donald Trump’s taxes, and what we’re seeing doesn’t paint a picture of a wildly successful business leader. In fact, quite the opposite: Trump lost more than $1 billion over the course of the decade in the 1980s and ’90s.

Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig at the New York Times on Tuesday published a blockbuster report providing insight into Trump’s business practices and taxes from 1985 to 1994. The report is based on printouts from his official IRS tax transcripts and figures from his federal tax form the Times obtained from an unnamed source with legal access to the information. Buettner and Craig went on to match those printouts to individual filings in the public, anonymized reports of the top earners that the IRS publishes each year..

The Times story paints a picture of an ambitious businessman whose public boasts of his successes often did not match what was going on behind the scenes. He would borrow tens of millions of dollars to take big risks and subsequently incur hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, which he would then use to avoid paying taxes. And as the Times notes, because the money often belonged to banks and bond investors who lent him money, Trump’s standard of living didn’t take a hit. Trump would also buy stock in a company, publicize that he was considering buying the company to pump up its stock price, and then later sell his shares without ever taking over the company.

NYT Trump taxes report reveals $1 billion in losses over 10 years - Vox

[Admin]

Deutsche Bank anti-money laundering personnel reportedly recommended turning over information about transactions by entities owned by President Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner to a government watchdog in 2016 and 2017, but the bank's executives apparently declined to do so. The transactions, including some connected to the now dissolved Trump Foundation, were flagged by the bank's computer system, which was set up to find unlawful activity, five current and former employees told The New York Times. After this, staffers reportedly put together suspicious activity reports they thought should be sent to the Treasury Department for investigation.

Bank staff highlighted 'suspicious activity' in Trump-, Kushner-controlled accounts: report | TheHill

[Admin]

A confidential Internal Revenue Service (IRS) legal memo says tax returns must be given to Congress unless the president takes the rare step of asserting executive privilege, according to a copy of the memo obtained by The Washington Post. The memo contradicts the Trump administration’s justification for denying lawmakers’ request for President Donald Trump’s tax returns, exposing fissures in the executive branch. Mr Trump has refused to turn over his tax returns but has not invoked executive privilege.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has instead denied the returns by arguing there is no legislative purpose for demanding them. But, according to the IRS memo, which has not been previously reported, the disclosure of tax returns to the committee “is mandatory, requiring the Secretary to disclose returns, and return information, requested by the tax-writing Chairs”.The 10-page document says the law “does not allow the Secretary to exercise discretion in disclosing the information provided the statutory conditions are met” and directly rejects the reason that Mr Mnuchin has cited for withholding the information.

Trump tax returns: President secretly instructed to invoke executive privilege