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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsQuestion - Shouldn't This Be Considered Income?
I was watching Seth Meyers clip tonight on youtube. He said Trump had spent over $100m from his "Save America PAC" on his legal expenses.
My question is why isnt this considered income for him then? Like a gift tax or something? It should be taxed. It benefits him personally.
Im not a tax lawyer so i dont know. But it just seems wrong.
Frasier Balzov
(2,697 posts)ALBliberal
(2,376 posts)Its like he received the income then turned around and spent it on non deductible legal costs. So just because the PAC is paying it directly shouldnt matter.
Would seem a serious breach of campaign finance laws as well?
Our laws cant keep up with this crazy guy.
Garland certainly cant (not that hes trying). Definitely not the IRS who has let him grift for years.
And he just plows ahead laughing at us law abiding citizens.
brooklynite
(95,136 posts)There's no specificity as to what those legal services have to be for.
Its not a violation of campaign finance law if the "Trump" contributions say (in the fine print) that some or all of the donation will go towards the PAC.
Consider that the Biden campaign isn;t claiming a campaign finance violation.
KPN
(15,691 posts)spanone
(135,999 posts)Response to NowISeetheLight (Original post)
spanone This message was self-deleted by its author.
Warpy
(111,522 posts)if other civil and criminal courts fail to do the job.
brooklynite
(95,136 posts)Trump is not spending the money because Trump doesn't legally run the PAC. While he benefits from the legal representation, its not considered "income" or a "gift" any more than a Public Defender paid for by the Government is.
brooklynite
(95,136 posts)AverageOldGuy
(1,576 posts). . . but I suspect it has to do with the way PACs were set up by the people in Congress who benefit from PACs.
For example, SarahPAC -- Sarah Palin's PAC -- was an unlimited PAC which means she used the millions donated to her to buy property in Arizona for herself and her children, pay for childcare for her Down Syndrome son, and everything but political purposes.
unblock
(52,552 posts)The campaign benefits from Donnie getting a good result in court, and the campaign is in trouble if Donnie gets a bad result in court. So it's probably a legitimate campaign expense even though Donnie benefits personally and would have had to pay as an individual if he didn't have a campaign to suck funds from.
CEOs benefit personally from many corporate expenses, such as travel (they love spending a week for brief meetings or "conferences" in places like Turks and Caicos or Hawaii) or limo services. High profile CEOs can probably justify home security and bodyguards.
Btw, gift tax probably doesn't apply to any of this, but if it did, it's the donor who pays gift tax, but the recipient.