Online Journalists Launch An Onslaught Against Donald Trump (nytimes.com)

An anonymous Slashdot reader writes: Online journalists at Buzzfeed are publicizing two controversial videos featuring Donald Trump. First the site "filed court motions seeking the release" of Trump's under-oath testimony in a June trial, in which the real estate mogul "says he planned his caustic remarks on immigration delivered during the launch of his presidential bid," bragging that they'd "led to my nomination in a major party in the country." And Buzzfeed is also publicizing a video clip from the 2000 softcore porn movie Playboy Video Centerfold: Bernaola Twins, in which Trump makes a cameo appearance. Playboy has even said that years earlier Trump actually pressured his second wife to pose for Playboy. ("Trump himself was on the phone negotiating the fee," remembered a top Playboy editor. "He wanted her to do the nude layout. She didn't.")

But his biggest problem may be the mainstream media. According to the New York Times, Trump "declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years..."

Comments

Re:Meh.

[PopeRatzo]

The first sentence says "Donald J. Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns". But then later says "The documents were the first page of a New York State resident income tax return, the first page of a New Jersey nonresident tax return and the first page of a Connecticut nonresident tax return." No federal tax information.

Where do you think the numbers on your state return come from? Maybe you've never filed taxes, but state returns say things like, "Enter amount from your Federal form on line 9a".

State tax returns are based on Federal tax returns.

Re:The house always wins

[Anonymous Coward]

You employ a slave mentality if you willingly pay taxes. Taxes are a game. You don't know this and you appeal to emotion instead of reason.

Smart people try not to pay taxes and hire the best accountants money can buy.

See KPMG, See Anderseen, Lehman Bros, Enron.. they all use the same guys, same tricks. It's accounting.

Re: Meh.

[sinij]

Yes, the President has full power over kill drones, no checks and balances whatsoever?

Pretty much, and Obama already used them for killing off US citizens. Sure, it was heinous people that got killed that way, but that can quickly get redefined.

Re:Legal maneuvers are ... legal!

[PopeRatzo]

If you read the Wikipedia page you cited, it doesn't say anything about rich people leaving the country in the years the top tax rate was 90%.

If you want to argue that well, "nobody actually paid the top rate", then the same could be said for today. Because, even with all the pissing and moaning from right conservatives about taxes, taxation in the US is really not that high (as shown by your own citation).

Re:Whoopty Doo

[ArmoredDragon]

an economy that's fscking over the middle class and making them pay for everything

I think I fit the definition of the middle class (between my job and the rent I collect I make just north of $80k/year) and I don't feel like I am being made to "pay for everything", nor do I feel like I'm being fucked over in any way. The top 1% income earners pay 50% of all of the federal income taxes, and the bottom 80% (which I'm part of) barely pay 15%, so please do explain why you think I'm getting fucked over and/or how I am being made to "pay for everything."

Re:The house always wins

[Orgasmatron]

Is it safe to assume that you've never actually done your own taxes? Nor read to the point of comprehension the return prepared for you by H&R Block?

There isn't a box on the form for "net worth", nor a place to list assets. The closest you get is depreciation schedules, and those don't cover a whole lot. It is pretty common for wealthy people to have no income, and also not to actually own anything.

Unless he wrote off a payment to a hit man as a business expense, it is hard to imagine anything that might be in his taxes that are worse for him, politically speaking, than not releasing them. He isn't releasing his tax returns because they don't exist in any meaningful sense, and they won't until the audit is concluded. When you are under audit, the IRS is saying that the documents you submitted are not your tax return, and they are going to use the audit process to create your return.

Re:Whoopty Doo

[dbIII]

overtly corrupt political structure now at the helm of this country

The extremely weird thing is that casino boss and real estate swindler is overtly far more corrupt than even that yet he is listened to.
Vote for the casino boss that cares for the little people (yeah, right), is the line he pushes and he really rubs in that all of us are little compared with him. It's the fucking aristocracy that George Washington threw out all over again.

Re:Whoopty Doo

[amiga3D]

He didn't write it but he did sign it. Bill Clinton was left wing on everything but the economy. And like he said, "It's the economy, stupid!" Bill Clinton was the last president to work with an opposition congress to accomplish anything. If the motherfucker could keep his pants zipped he could have gone down in history as one of the best presidents ever. Obama had a Democrat controlled congress and he used it to ram a shitty health care bill down everyone's throat. He got what he wanted but pissed off enough people to destroy the Democrats majority in both houses. We had a really good Democrat representative in my district until after he voted for that bill. Before Obamacare he was a sure thing every election. That one vote for the AHCA ended his political career. Now we have a tea party Republican.

Clinton Foundation numbers

[bradley13]

Of course it shields assets. Why do you think it exists? Hillary's speech fees are paid to the foundation - this is public knowedlge. The foundation is nonprofit, this is on record. The reason for doing this is obvious: non-profits have tax advantages: she gets to keep more of her money, it's just kept in the nonprofit.

I'm not saying this is illegal - unfortunately, it is legal. It is a common way for rich people to avoid taxes.

As for whether or not the Clinton Foundation is "really" nonprofit, consider: A really good nonprofit that is genuinely supporting a cause puts somewhere between 75% and 90% of its income into whatever cause it supports. The Clinton Foundation has a rather different record. For example, in 2015 the New York Post published numbers from 2013 showing that they foundation spend $9 million (out of a budget of $140 million) on charity, Many times that amount when to payroll, employee benefits, travel and other expenses. You can find similar information from other sources, covering other years.

The Clinton Foundation is a legal organization, doing legal things. It's primary purpose is to provide a way for the Clintons to shield their money from taxes, and to provide salaries to their cronies. This kind of loophole exists, because taxes are for the little people.

Re:Clinton Foundation numbers

[kqs]

A really good nonprofit that is genuinely supporting a cause puts somewhere between 75% and 90% of its income into whatever cause it supports. The Clinton Foundation has a rather different record. For example, in 2015 the New York Post published numbers from 2013 showing that they foundation spend $9 million (out of a budget of $140 million) on charity,

You know that that is misleading to the point of lying, right? The Clinton Foundation doesn't give much money to other charities, true. Instead it runs it's own charitable programs, and percentage-wise spends less on payroll and administrative employee expenses than most charities. I don't know if the CF is a wonderful charity or not, but it is spending money better than other charities. It's been under constant scrutiny by anti-Clinton folks for years; if they were shielding assets for the Clintons it would have come out. Instead, people just repeat the same lies as you did

In a sense, it does lower the Clinton's taxes, in the way that donating to any charity reduces your taxes. It also means that that money is no longer theirs, which is why most people don't give 10% of their income to charity. But nobody has demonstrated that the Clintons are particularly using the CF money on themselves. Maybe they are and nobody has found the evidence (unlike with Trump's foundation). Or maybe you have evidence that the rest of the world doesn't?

Re:Clinton Foundation numbers

[Fire_Wraith]

I have a very hard time finding the evidence for your conclusion based on any sort of independent, non-partisan, non-cherry-picked evaluations:
Four Star, 93%+ rating from Charity Navigator https://www.charitynavigator.o...
Charity Watch: A Rating, 88% of funds go to programs not administrative costs: https://www.charitywatch.org/r...

The actual evidence seems to indicate that the vast majority of the money that goes to the Clinton foundation actually goes to what it's ostensibly for - charitable causes themselves. That's almost the exact opposite of a "slush fund" or a way to hide money, because they're not getting anything back out of it in any appreciable form. 12%? They'd keep more of the money if they paid standard taxes with no deductions!

Re:ahem...

[I'm New Around Here]

Of course, in Europe, anyone who thinks people have the right to own property is "right wing".