General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMy guess: Trump's taxes don't reveal impeachable crimes, but there's something in there bad enough
to turn off and drive away his base and to humiliate him.
I can't imagine what that could be given how slavishly and blindly devoted they are to him and his utter lack of conscience and shame. But he knows what it is, he knows it's bad and he's sure he needs to fight to the bitter end to keep them from seeing it because he can t bear to face the consequences.
splat
(2,294 posts)StarfishSaver
(18,486 posts)The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,661 posts)(there's no line for that on a 1040) but a forensic accountant might be able to figure it out. Whether it would humiliate him is doubtful, though, unless going to prison counts as humiliating.
I think the only thing that could be revealed in his tax returns that might humiliate him is proof that he's not rich at all and that he's deeply in debt.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)LastLiberal in PalmSprings
(12,578 posts)It doesn't figure in their day-to-day lives. "Hey Bob," says the bowler to his friend, "have you heard that Fred got caught money laundering?" "Was he using the wrong kind of detergent?" Both laugh, and Bob throws a strike.
Even if there were computer files labeled "Trump Money Laundering Schemes" in the taxes, it wouldn't move a single vote.
Merlot
(9,696 posts)StarfishSaver
(18,486 posts)Crooked Guy gives him $10 million - he declares $1 million on his taxes and buries the rest of it somewhere else. There's now a record of him getting money from Crooked Guy that could lead investigators to dig around Trump's finances to see if there are any other strange transactions or expenditures during that time that could be linked.to Crooked Guy.
GusBob
(7,286 posts)The fools will be the jerks who put him on the richest people list
StarfishSaver
(18,486 posts)His main value to them is his supposed invincibility. If he starts looking like a punk, he loses his tie to them
Arthur_Frain
(1,848 posts)Too many goddamn letdowns, I dont need the buildup for this. There may be something actionable in there, and there very well may be nothing but a tired, frightened, empty shell of an old man trying desperately to make himself out to be the success that has always really eluded him.
I dont know.
But until the court rules that wed get to see them people claiming they Know that his taxes will prove hes dirty irritates me about as much as when folks (especially politicians) say shit like The vast majority of people......... I dont really give a shit what they say after that, because usually the divide is more like 50-50 or 49-51. And thats a vast majority.
Make a statement of fact that you can verify, or identify your statement as your subjective opinion, and then wait for the reveal.
Fiendish Thingy
(15,568 posts)1) he's never paid taxes due to fraudulent reporting
2) he's not a billionaire
3) he's deep in debt to Russian sources.
And a possible 4th, evidence of money laundering for Russians.
empedocles
(15,751 posts)The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,661 posts)undervaluing properties in order to lessen his taxes on them, and overvaluing the same properties for insurance purposes (and money laundering). I don't think evidence of wholesale tax evasion will either humiliate him or turn off his base, because the MAGAts are likely to regard tax evasion as a good thing - proof that he's a smart businessman who knows how to stick it to the government. Unless he's itemizing deductions for payments to hookers and porn stars, I don't know what would be in his tax returns that might embarrass him.
Ohiogal
(31,962 posts)Not paying taxes makes you smart.
Pachamama
(16,886 posts)And there are prosecutable crimes associated with this
former9thward
(31,965 posts)They have had his taxes for 50 years now.
marble falls
(57,063 posts)how screwing the IRS worked out for him.
former9thward
(31,965 posts)Why haven't they prosecuted him? The went after Capone because they had his taxes.
mucifer
(23,522 posts)marble falls
(57,063 posts)beachbumbob
(9,263 posts)charity, which he has lied his head off over 30 years.
forthemiddle
(1,379 posts)If he is, wouldnt they find any true crimes, or at least have the exact same information that the Congress is suing for?
I agree that the worst they will show is that hes not as rich as he wants his followers to believe.
StarfishSaver
(18,486 posts)Audits are based on the taxpayers financial records. If they provide documentation to support what's in the returns, there's no clear evidence of fraud.
The fraud becomes a parent if a third party compares the numbers and financial documentation submitted to the IRS with numbers and documentation submitted elsewhere. If they don't match, he's got some 'splainin to do. But that's beyond the IRS's purview.
I think one of the reasons he's fighting
so hard too keep his taxes returns secret is that he knows he submitted different, conflicting information - and probably forged documents - to banks and other entities. If Congress or a prosecutor gets all of those documents and starts comparing them, they'll have a prima facie case of perjury, fraud, forgery, etc.
crickets
(25,959 posts)2. Proof he has no real wealth.
Stuart G
(38,414 posts)... Zero
... Nada
... 00
... Empty
... Nothing
... Brilliant ???
... Illegal
... Foolish
... Con Artist
... Very Stupid if he tried to con the IRS..My guess is no, He didn't try to con the IRS....He just doesn't want anyone to see that he is not as rich as people think he is, and he paid ZERO ..in taxes...When other presidents were truthful about their taxes and that they paid them... He will be somewhat embarrassed, but he really doesn't give a sh*t about anyone but himself.
gopiscrap
(23,733 posts)George II
(67,782 posts)...most likely they don't fall into the impeachment category.
However, NYS and NYC both levy income taxes, and both of those jurisdictions DO have his tax returns. Not Federal returns but State and City returns.
Letitia James is already on the case. There will be state crimes, probably related to income tax evasion. They're not pardonable.
CaptainTruth
(6,583 posts)I don't think he's fighting so hard to keep his tax & bank records secret because he's trying to preserve his base, I think he's fighting because he knows he reported different numbers to the IRS & lenders, committing bank fraud or tax fraud, or both. I think he knows how mobsters were taken down by financial fraud & he realizes he can't just lie his way out of it, so it could take him down too, & that scares him.
leftstreet
(36,103 posts)Odoreida
(1,549 posts)dawg day
(7,947 posts)and overstates them for bank loans.
Then again, those are actual crimes, which bother "the base" not at all.
What would bother them, perhaps, would be that he isn't a billionaire, and isn't very rich at all.
I wonder if anyone has tried to add up how much he must be worth? The only really profitable business event I can think of is when he sold that Florida estate for to more than twice what he bought it for-- to
Dmitry Rybolovlev, the Russian oligarch who has all sorts of suspicions of laundering his rubles (he was the one who bought and sold the supposed "Da Vinci" painting last year).
Trump made $45 million on that sale... and the oligarch razed the house afterwards, having paid then more than $90million for an empty lot (he broke it up and sold it in pieces... a rather good way to launder lots of ill-gotten gains).
What else has made him real money? And could that possibly add up to "billions"?
matt819
(10,749 posts)That he has declared multi millions or even billions in income and paid zero taxes.
Or
That he has declared virtually no income and paid zero in taxes.
Gothmog
(145,079 posts)First, it is clear that trump is not as rich as he claims. The federal forms require gross income numbers and the numbers reported are not what you expect from a true billionaire.
Second, while the federal forms require disclosure of true debt, these forms not require disclosure of private equity investments or foreign ownership of trump assets. It is a common structure to form a LLC with the managers having a small investment and outside equity source having the bulk of the economic investment. In this structure, the "owner" is in effect managing the assets for the private equity investor and only gets paid if the private equity investor gets its investment back plus some sore of preferred return. After the private equity investor gets their investment back plus an agreed to preferred return, then there is a flip and "owner" start sharing in the income of the property at a higher level.
I suspect that many of trump's golf and other properties were financed by Russian or Saudi financing sources and that trump has a small capital account in these investments. Many of trump's golf courses are losing money which means that trump may have little or no equity in these entities.
We need to know who owns these investments. It is common for this structure to provide the right of the private equity investor to remove and replace the management team if certain thresholds are not met. Again, there are reports that trump's golf properties are losing money and so it may that Russian or Saudis private equity investors can remove trump at any time for failure to perform. This could explain why trump is so subservient to Putin and MBS
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,313 posts)Hekate
(90,627 posts)And happy holidays!
uponit7771
(90,335 posts)... the value of his home to the bank.
IE, the reason why they lost his paperwork
Generic Brad
(14,274 posts)The tax returns he filed with the IRS don't come close to matching the tax returns he used to secure loans. Can you say massive fraud on an unprecedented large scale?
jmowreader
(50,552 posts)Listen very, very close: there are no impeachable crimes to be found in Trump's tax returns. Come on, be serious: if you were going to go out and commit a crime, would you then list the money you made from it on your taxes? Of course you wouldn't! Trump is as stupid as he is ugly but there's no damn way he is dumb enough to report his ill-gotten gains.
Having said that, take a very close look at Trump's proclaimed "business": he's a landlord. The man has to sell towels, rent out his name and produce bad television because his actual business - commercial real estate leasing - is what most rich people get into because they need a source of tax loss.
I figure his total Line 7b income (on the new form), not counting what he's getting from charging the government to watch over him, has been between $500k and $2M for the last five years.