Wealthy Developer Employs Accountants To Reduce Federal Tax

2020 62 Comments

Film at 11.

Update.

More: No, You Idiots. That’s Not How Taxes Work.

62 Replies to “Wealthy Developer Employs Accountants To Reduce Federal Tax”

  1. Trump-IRS: Setting aside the authenticity and interpretation of the alleged tax returns, not to mention if they were obtained legally, could there be another explanation?
    I’m not an accountant or savy about taxes. When I heard the story, my first thought was, well, what do you expect when the enterprise is invested in a longer, multi year or multi decade business cycle. Some projects, especially major commercial real estate developments or public works projects are years or decades in the making, from inception until they turn a profit and, from the get go, require enormous upfront funding. In other words, the investors advance millions at the outset, for studies, permits, fees, legal services, obtaining land, obtaining financing, negotiating contracts, payroll, materials etc……….years before they even break ground. I forgot to include all the Pay to Play schemes, local, county, state, and federal pols, city and county departments, Architecture Preservation Boards, Beautify the City Boards, environmental organizations, race hustlers, the unions,….. the mafia, but I repeat myself. And even then it maybe years before they have a product to sell and then many more years before they turn a profit. So, of course, enterprises, of this nature, appear to be losing money and report losses for years. Some have speculated that this is why Trump knew how sleazy government is. Just a thought. Anyone?

  3. Well, it’s “income” tax. I believe that Trump donates his Presidential “salary” to various charities. So the real question is…what is his personal income? And does anybody really think that him being President, he would play tax games? What a bunch of crap. Just another steaming pile of DNS crap.

  5. It seems that every so often, there’s some phony-baloney “revelation” about someone or something.

    Nearly 50 years ago, there was the fake autobiography of Howard Hughes written by Clifford Irving. A few years later, there was the book about the first human clone by David Rorvik. The story turned out to be a hoax.

    And, not to be outdone, there were the Hitler diaries in the early 1980s and many of us remember how that turned out.

    Now we’ve got Trump’s “tax returns”. Yawn……

  6. 1) The suggestion that the NYT story is wrong is nothing but lies from Trump. If the NYT reports we wrong Trump could settle the issue by releasing is tax returns which he still refuses to do. He could follow it up with a lawsuit as well which is why the chances of the NYT being wrong on this story is very small.

    2) Trump has not made a profit in decades. At some point chronic losses show that he is either an incompetent businessman, engaging in fraud by reporting losses that do not exist or both. We know from other sources that Trump manipulates his asset values to suit his needs. Inflating them when he needs loans and undervaluing them when he wants to escape liabilities.

    Anyone with any sense of decency should be appalled by the idea that an alleged billionaire pays no taxes after year after year.

        1. I do it every year. Paid no tax last year, just did a trial run for this year……no tax and did one every year for the last 20 odd years. The tax courses I took were authored by ex-CRA auditors (a good course offered at BCIT in Vancouver at night, or used to) and I have excellent tax software, that I’ve kept up yo date for the last 30 years. Actually did personal taxes for a few years, when work was slow back in my field in the 90’s. You can earn about $40-50,000 in dividend income annually and pay no tax. Try to impress that on people…..well, the old saying “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink” comes to mind. “Muh house” bogs ’em down and empties their bank accounts. A hint: borrow money to invest, don’t use yours. Write off the interest costs against your personal income. And don’t buy your Moose pasture XYZ stock, buy your bank stock, for starters.
          For instance, TD pays a whopping 5.07% dividend today, usually it’s in the 3% range, or less. Think TD is going out of business any time soon? At $62.37 a steal of a deal….a $6,237 investment (100 shares @ $62.37) paying you 5%. TD pays squat on the $6,237 cash in your checking account, so buy the stock, idiots. That “dividend tax credit” you get at the end of the year goes against the taxes you pay on your job income. Do that on increasing dividend income annually and pretty soon …. no taxable income, or a sizeable reduction of same. I’ve posted this before over the years. Like I said… horse…water.
          It’s free advice, you’re welcome. And on that increased “carbon tax” you’re going to be paying, something to think about to offset that tax.

    2. Tim G, you seem to want it both ways – Trump either made billions and paid no taxes or he’s an incompetent, reporting losses that may or may not exist. Give your head a shake.

      1. Calgary 68: Trump hires people to do his income tax they are called Accountants!! I would like to see Joe Biden’s and his SON’s income tax for the time he work for China, Russia…2000 to 2020 would do Joe’s all the way back to 1980. Why do the DemocRat want to see TRUMPS Income Tax let publish Pelsoi, Shummer, Nadler and the list goes on!

    3. And anyone with any brains at all knows that tax law is extremely complicated. You obviously do not belong in that group.

    4. The problem with your hypothesis is you are assuming if they did, the NYTs would report in a fair and balanced way. They would not. There would be stream of biased one sided reports on every aspect of Trump’s life and anyone and everyone who ever worked for him. One example right now is the press is crowing abut how Trump paid $70,000/year to get haircuts while he hosted the Apprentice. Pretty disgusting isn’t it. However if you know he had two salaried hairstylists/make up artists/costumers in the show and they were each paid $35,000/year while working for him, it doesn’t sound evil. Which do you think the NYTs is going to report? Plus the two hair stylists would have ANTIFA burning down their garage for being racists and the Democrat TDS sufferers contacting whoever they are working for now demanding they be fired for supporting Orange Man Bad.

      1. Yes, I do believe that the media wants this access to harass and potentially flip people, organizations and entities that have done business with Trump.
        And, of course, they cherry pick the pieces that they publish and omit anything exculpatory; it’s who they are.

    5. 1) The absence of a lawsuit means nothing. If I were he I would not be providing the NYT with another grandstanding platform.
      1A) You seem to be unhappy that Trump refuses to release his tax return. Do you make the same demand on all the presidential candidates? If I were Trump I would refuse also, if it is not constitutionally demanded that I must do so. Even if the return is completely on the up and up, I would not give the presstitudes more material to sort through with a find tooth comb. After all, they can find something evil with Trump having two scoops of ice cream. Horrors.
      2) That is the raison d’etre of accountants, to come up with a tax return from a client that minimizes the income tax. Why else would someone pay an accountant? Actually, billionaires don’t have “an accountant”, they have accounting departments for their firms. Why is it evil in just this one specific case, and not all the others?
      3) You don’t know that (your unnumbered ultimate sentence). You are just blowing smoke.

    6. Sure, anyone would.
      But the story claims that he did pay his taxes.
      The amount is on record as being paid.
      The suggestion is that he must have cheated on his taxes is just as valid as he cheated to win the election in 2016.
      Matter of fact the democrats wasted three years on an investigation based on a lie to prove something they wished was true.

      Every time these “bombshells”(tm) get released it validates to every Trump voter that they made the right decision in 2016. And every time it just convinces them it’s a good decision for 2020 every time the dems and their peanut gallery lose it at the mere mention of “President Donald J Trump”.

    7. @TimG
      Never mind the naysayers here. They(Trumpettes) can’t process information(the truth) about Trump who is a lying fraud, a blithering idiot and a disgrace to the office. Elementary school teachers paid more income tax than him. Rest assured there are some other tax dead beats like The Great Orange Buffoon.

      1. So Canuck, you are another moron/fool, clueless how tax codes work, but “he must be a crook” despite NO FACTS to support your feelings. Feelings aren’t facts, rube!
        Keep proving and showing your idiocy. You’re the same kind of conservative as David Orchard, a fake!

      2. Kanuk guy, the IRS is loaded with lefties, remember Louis Lerner, and if there was any thing negative about Trump’s taxes, we’d hear about it loud and clear, we haven’t , so there is nothing, period>

        Now try using your head for more than keeping your ears spread apart!

      3. Elementary school teachers are stupid, when it comes to paying the taxes they pay, because they are ignorant on tax matters as are most Kan-eh-jians. I sat across from many of them, doing their tax returns for them. If I was so stupid on tax matters as they are, I’d hide from the public and shut my mouth about it.

        1. You would think this idiot teacher would do that. But, no. He couldn’t resist sounding like the fuuctard that he is.

    8. Heads you win…tails I lose. Cool.

      Not filing a lawsuit should never be construed as an admission of guilt or to give a “story” credence. Flawed logic.
      Try again.

    9. Thanks for showing how STUPID the typical leftist is, as you show zero knowledge of how tax codes, depreciation, and offsets work.
      Neither does it show an appreciation that tax returns are performed by QUALIFIED PROFESSIONAL ACCOUNTANTS AND ATTORNEYS.
      Big words for you to understand, try and read it slowly, and read it again.
      Your talking points are uneducated and shallow.
      GFY.

    11. For the same reason Biden won’t release his Delaware papers, because he knows they would be spun out of context.
      Try to keep up. Once more the hate Trump mediocracy has set themselves up for another fall on the eve of the first debate.
      Once again, caught in a lie by the American people.

    12. Tim.

      Ask yourself a simple question.
      We saw what obama and his goons did the day Trump won the election. (FBI & Flynn)
      Do you not think he would not have someone dig into his Trumps taxes. it’s not the first time he’s done this. (Tea party)

  7. President Trump guaranteed 100% paid taxes. He had no choice as it is charged on his materials and businesses. This allowed him deductions and credits n his Income Taxes. This is how business works.
    So any story indicting that Trump did not pay taxes in incorrect.
    He would have massive losses deducted which could give him returns on the money he already paid out.
    Just strictly go by Income tax supposition, is wrong.

  8. The thing the NYT doesn’t get with its “story”, is that Trump paid his taxes.
    Get that, he paid them.
    Whether it was one million or one dollar.
    The amount has been paid in full.

    Now, if we could get some disclosure of Obama’s grades from Harvard.

    1. I don’t believe Harvard really gives “grades” per se. Mostly all pass-fail as I understand it.

      What we REALLY want to see is Obama’s Columbia Grades, and HS grades that PROVE his affirmative-action social promotion to Harvard. Not the sharpest tool in the drawer … but he is FROM Kenya!

  9. Even the president of the United States has no right to privacy, it seems.

    That is enjoyed only by the very small club, 50,000 at most worldwide, who operate above any meaningful human law and can afford to see that anybody who pokes his nose in their business pays dearly:

    Chinese oligarchs.

    Arab petro-tyrants.

    Financiers who bankroll standing armies and can sign the death warrant of princes and potentates by refusing to lend them any more money.

    Cult leaders with deep pockets and influence in high society, everyone from the Mormons to the Scientologists to the Vatican.

  10. IRS 1040EZ Form = Low information voter

    The envious filers of the 1040EZ Form … have NO IDEA about ANY of the 3,000 pages of IRS Tax Code. However, every single large business in the USA has teams of Accountants who do. The NYT is speaking to the uneducated whiners who “believe” every rich person got that way by cheating all the EZ Form’ers … by TAKING their “piece of the pie”. There is no cure for stupidity and ignorance.

  12. Lord Tomlin’s dictum in IRC v Duke of Westminster,
    in which he said,
    “Every man is entitled if he can to arrange his affairs so that the tax attaching under the appropriate Acts is less than it otherwise would be. If he succeeds in ordering them so as to secure that result, then, however unappreciative the Commissioners of Inland Revenue or his fellow taxpayers may be of his ingenuity, he cannot be compelled to pay an increased tax.”

  13. It is income tax not wealth tax. Income tax tells nothing about a person’s income when 99.99 of it is shielded within corporations. Trump was hit with some pretty big losses in the past which he is likely using to deduct against current earnings. Trump’s personal living expenses might possibly be surprisingly small as every trip on the jet is likely for business as is every meal, hotel, and golf game.

  14. I can understand why Trump doesn’t release his returns. The nature of his business is such that the the tax maneuvers would be over the head of the average mope. To quote Bill H on Maggies Farm. anotherdotcom: “Property development is speculative, i.e. educated gambling. Some projects pay off big, and the myopic media accuse the developer of gouging. Other projects flop, and they accuse the developer of being a con. As you say, property development is a long term proposition. Some decades, most of your projects prosper and you’re on easy street. Other decades, most turn sour and you have to scramble to avoid personal bankruptcy. As a side note, Trump controlled hotel and casino businesses have declared bankruptcy six times between 1991 and 2009 because they couldn’t pay bank debt, yet he stayed afloat through it all.”

  15. If this is their October surprise it’s a nothing burger.

    Most Americans have a crushing debt load, notably in the Covid world. The fact he is leveraged to the neck and not cheating, that makes him slightly better at it.

    All Americans have a reasonable assurance of confidentiality from the deep state, I mean IRS. I believe that Trump will be enriched by law suit he is going to file against the NYT.

    And then there is another Nobel Prize nomination.

    https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6195238657001

  17. The same Canadians on this board pi$$ing and moaning about Trump and his taxes are the same ones who didn’t give a sh*t each time Paul Martin hoisted up a Panamanian flag on one of his ships.
    Why does Paul Martin do it? Because he can.

    Now all those family offshore accounts as revealed by the “Paradise Papers” leak several years ago may be a different matter.

    1. +++ burton, most Canadians have no freaking idea what Paul Martin, and Jean the Cretin did to line the liberal pockets at taxpayer expense. How about that word stupid, yes, it just keeps popping up when talking about the Canadian voter. Most Canadians have no freaking idea what is or is not illegal in Canadian politics, yep, stupid.

  19. And btw…this news was timed to distract from Hunter Biden’s abject corruption – and why his dalliances in human trafficking isn’t getting more air time sure is a mystery to me. Actually it isn’t.
    But think about it…he made money buying and selling human beings. I mean, WTF???!!!???

  20. “Trump Tax Cheat” is from the same idiots who thought Burn Loot Murder,would sell to suburban housewives.
    Two things leap out of this.
    Assume the NYT actually has obtained a copy of President Trumps real taxes.
    If true,who is the criminal?
    And for tax collectors this will rebound brutally.
    So Government ,IRS,can force you to file a tax report and pay..
    Complete confidentiality,upheld by penalty of law,is promised in return..
    So if this information is real and found its way from IRS to NYT..then government is in breech of contract.
    Every tax payer can now refuse to file as government cannot be trusted to safeguard that information..
    So further confusion and longterm pain to the tax funded parasites.

    Second,again if real,the attempt to pretend that avoiding paying taxes is anything but patriotic,will crash and burn.
    Taxpayers have seen too much and too many examples of Government Spending.
    Every dollar they force from you,will be used to attack your freedom.

  21. I’m a CPA and have practiced specializing in tax for forty years.
    I haven’t seen Trump’s returns, but I know exactly what they would look like and how they would be prepared.
    The NYT got nothing – the story they ran was pretty lame. I actually hope for their sake they made the whole thing up.
    Because if they got actual info, whoever they got it from will be toast, and they will be co-conspirators.
    The first amendment covers a lot of free speech, but going into a bank and yelling “give me all the money or die” still involves a few federal statutes that you don’t want to be on the wrong side of…

  22. So I guess illegally procured personal financial documents are okay now. Hopefully we’ll get a good look into Biden and his son’s dealings, right NYT? Fair’s fair.

    Just like how attacking children is back on the table again as part of SCOTUS debates.

  23. yah, Timmy and Kanuck fool would piss themselves if their privacy was invaded like Trump’s supposedly was!

  24. Drool in your oatmeal morons. I spent 50 freaking years in business and spent all 50 years trying to keep the government from screwing me financially. I am an old man and they are still trying to screw me. Freaking commie bastards, that applies to 70 % of freaking Canadians and damn near 55% of Americans. For all you liberal socialists out there, call me when you your brain starts working.

    1. You know, OWG that bunch at CRA are just another criminal gang. A slippery one, too. I got stories on the stuff they tried to pull on my business over 20 years, before they went digital. I started out purposely setting them up to fail, every GD’d year on just payroll alone and had fun doing it. Got audited once and when that was over, they were wiping the egg off their faces.

      1. Back in the day, a company for whom I was doing the books was audited. The set-up was unusual in that I could sign cheques without another signature, as the owner’s work was such that would never get anything paid if we had to have two signatures. Needless to say, I ran everything by the office manager before signing and sending off cheques; recognized this was an equivocal situation and acted accordingly. When the CRA auditor came in, he asked about this and I explained the situation and how I dealt with it. However, I subsequently heard that said auditor suggested to my client’s accountant that obviously I was in an improper relationship with said client as there was no other explanation for the set-up. Subsequent antics by the auditor led to the accountant’s reporting the person to the professional body to which they both belonged, and we did hear that particular incompetent was let go by CRA.

        Fast forward a good few years and an offspring was taking accounting at the local uni. Somewhere along the line, this story was dropped on the prof who was – I gathered – not surprised. My response to the “accusation” was that one look at both my client and myself would be sufficient to dispel that particular suggestion.

  25. These tax provisions have been in place for decades. A lot of them are legit and intended to establish equity and to encourage investment. Trump didn’t write them; the establishment did. Bueller? Bueller?

  28. The NYT story reminds me of 2012 when Harry Reid made the accusation that rich ol’ Romney doesn’t pay any taxes. Reid said he’d “heard from someone” that Romney didn’t pay any income tax. All hear say, all fiction, all made up, no supporting evidence, nobody coming forward to prove what Reid was saying,,, but none of that mattered, because the Main Stream Media ran with the story and knocked Romney on his heels and he wasted days trying to dispute what Reid was suggesting. No questions for Reid,,, but plenty for Romney.(don’t get me wrong, i’m no fan of romney,,, but this is how Democrats play politics)

  29. Thread from the Althouse blog:
    Why didn’t Joe Biden work on changing the tax laws in all those decades in Congress? He’s responsible for the system that Trump, as a private citizen, was forced to operate within.

    Cory Booker tweet:
    First we must vote this man out of office. Then we must change a tax system so deeply flawed that he (Trump) could get away with all this.

    Althouse: It’s unAmerican to use the phrase “get away with” to refer to following the law. It’s like accusing me of speeding when I’m going 75 in a 75 mph zone. I’m not “getting away with” it. I’m going the speed limit! Change the speed limit if that’s the wrong top speed. Crimes are the things that have been defined as crimes. It’s particularly irksome for a legislator to talk like that — shifting the blame for the legislature’s own failures.

    Pretty obvious that Rhodes Scholar Booker doesn’t know jack about the tax code.

    1. I thought you were joking but I checked. How can anyone as stupid as Cory Booker have been a Rhodes Scholar? Forget that – I suspect I already know.

  30. You know what I think? I think I think Trump was smart enough to set this up. He knew the Times would cream their panties to report the $750 as fact when he actually paid in several million dollars and rolled it forward to offset future liabilities. Now Trump can credibly say that the Times lied about his taxes. Because they did.

  31. //Note also that most of the overpayment was rolled forward, not refunded. The $750 figure is an ADDITIONAL $750. Thus every single story saying he paid $750 is a lie. //

    That’s not a tax payment; that’s a credit against future taxes. And Trump, if true to form [and he stays out of jail] will be wanting that back aginst future losses.
    He has form in the matter:

    The only notable exceptions to this pattern of minimal tax payments were the years 2005, 2006, and 2007, when “The Apprentice,” which Trump co-produced with NBC, was doing very well, and the big accounting loss that he had carried over from the nineteen-nineties had run out. “With no prior-year losses left to reduce his taxable income, he paid substantial federal income taxes for the first time in his life: a total of $70.1 million,” the Times report says. This money didn’t stay in the coffers of the U.S. government for very long.

    In 2010, Trump declared to the I.R.S. that, during 2008 and 2009, his businesses had lost another $1.4 billion. Exploiting a little-noticed clause in a piece of legislation that Barack Obama had signed into law as part of the efforts to stimulate the economy after the Great Recession, Trump claimed that this huge loss entitled him to a full refund of the income taxes he had paid in 2005, 2006, and 2007. The I.R.S. quickly paid out Trump’s claim pending an audit. The refund “would eventually grow to $70.1 million, plus $2,733,184 in interest,” the Times reports. “He also received $21.2 million in state and local refunds, which often piggyback on federal filings.
    https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/trumps-seventy-three-million-dollar-tax-refund-is-the-biggest-outrage-of-all

    1. I believe in capitalism(beats socialism any day) but the rich have too many big loopholes in which to avoid paying a decent fair share of tax.

  32. Main Stream Media Caught LYING…!!
    Oh the Horrors – the Humanity…!!!

    …and this is news how/why.??
    Been going on for 70 years non stop.

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