I’ve mentioned this before, but here I go again: I have a Bachelor’s degree in Economics. And yet I really don’t understand the tax code or tax laws at all, probably because Economics is more about monetary and fiscal policy and unions and game theory and sh-t (IDK, I barely remember). I don’t even think there was any kind of Economics class about tax codes and tax laws, at least not at my college. Anyway, that’s my way of prefacing this story: I have no idea what this means, but I know it’s really bad. I know it’s bad because journalists and “numbers people” and lawyers are freaking the f–k out about it. The story? The New York Times did an incredibly deep dive into the Trump family’s assets and tax shenanigans and Fred Trump’s massive estate. You can read the full piece here:
Pick your headline/summary/takeaway:
*Donald Trump received at least $413 million from his father over the decades, much of that through dubious tax dodges, including outright fraud. Remember, Bigly claimed he only got a $1 million loan from his daddy.
*Donald Trump and his father, Fred, avoided gift and inheritance taxes by setting up a sham corporation and undervaluing assets to tax authorities. BUT HIS TAX RETURNS.
*Trump’s parents, the paper says, citing tax records, gave over a billion dollars to Trump and his siblings and paid $52.2 million in taxes on the money. However, the dollar amount could have required at least $550 million in taxes, according to the Times analysis.
*The New York Times claims it has 100,000 pages of financial documents, including confidential tax returns from the father and his companies. WHERE? HOW?
Also, this:
PS… Would Bob Mueller hand over 10,000 documents to the NYT just as an appetizer for the buffet of indictments to come?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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