Was Trump's $916,000,000 tax write off legal?

[lapucelle]

The media has been stressing that Trump's tax write off was a perfectly legal exercise of a provision in the tax code. This assumes that there was no concomitant chicanery concerning the loss itself.

The very excellent, left-leaning conspiracy theorist Joe Cannon has a great article on the possible criminal manipulation of the loss by Trump via the IRS.

Joe was insisting to his readers as far back as last winter that Roger Stone was the brains behind the Trump campaign despite the fact that Stone had no open, public role at the time, so Joe's instincts are often on target. He's also a DU reader who links to this site.

http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/

[MyNameIsKhan]

1. I donot know real estate laws but addendum that shows how he reached -$916 Million will

be Interesting, we need to see how he lost this kind of money OR its all a baloney... All hyped up numbers.

Think about this $916 Million in 1995 will be atleast $4 billion now...

[etherealtruth]

2. Listened to a lot of analysis today regarding this ... seems it was likely legal ....

... but generally not considered "right" or "moral" .... and not something we would want to have a president to have done.

Apparently the way he did it completely screwed investors over.

[lapucelle]

3. While the deduction might have been legal

Joe Cannon is questioning whether the loss that allowed it was genuine or a manipulation like debt parking. Similarly, if the loss was due to a bankruptcy, Trump would have had to claim any debt forgiveness as income.

[etherealtruth]

4. The analyst I heard talked about that ... but seemingly ...

the rules are different for mutual funds and real-estate (we reportedly have congress to thank for that).

I will look for links to the discussions (again, this was my understanding of the reporting ... I have no true understanding of the situation other than that)

[etherealtruth]

7. I can't find links to the actual reports I listened to ... but these come close

The reporting was pretty clear that just because it may be legal ... it doesn't mean its ethical

http://www.npr.org/2016/10/02/496303458/how-donald-trump-could-have-not-paid-income-taxes-for-18-years

But thanks to more generous allowances for real estate professionals, Trump would have been allowed to use his casino losses to offset income from unrelated work, including the millions he earned as star of "The Apprentice" television show, or licensing his name to the maker of Trump neckties.

"Here's the magic of real estate," says Lee Sheppard, contributing editor of Tax Notes, a Washington-based journal. "Congress, which writes the tax laws, affirmatively subsidizes commercial real estate through the mechanism of the tax code."

http://www.npr.org/2016/10/03/496314538/trumps-financial-moves-in-the-90s-genius-or-colossal-failure

[MyNameIsKhan]

5. He can fudge $916 million loss but IRS would have found out by now after audit.

[etherealtruth]

6. here is a link

http://www.npr.org/2016/10/02/496303458/how-donald-trump-could-have-not-paid-income-taxes-for-18-years

The forms show that in 1995, Trump claimed a business loss of nearly $916 million. Much of that likely resulted from Trump's business losses in previous years, including money-losing casinos in Atlantic City and the Trump Shuttle airline.

At the time, the tax code allowed such losses to be "carried forward" up to 15 years, offsetting income and reducing or even eliminating tax liability and carried backward on income up to 3 years prior. (The allowance has since been changed to carry forward 20 years and carry back 2 years.) The code is particularly flexible when it comes to real estate professionals like Trump.

The losses cited on Trump's 1995 return were so massive, he could have earned up to $50 million dollars a year for nearly two decades without owing any income tax.

[scscholar]

8. But the IRS only judges what's legal, not what's fair (ntxt)

[MyNameIsKhan]

9. Get that and agree, my point is we donot see results of Audit and how much of 916 Mil was allowed

That would have been interesting...