Today’s Big Lie: The Clintons ‘Avoided Taxes Just Like Trump’ (No, They Didn’t)

[DonViejo]

Conservative media are attempting to deflect attention from the revelation that GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump took a $916 million loss in 1995 that might have allowed him to avoid paying federal income taxes for 18 years by saying that that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and former president Bill Clinton did “the same thing” by claiming a “$700,000 loss” on their 2015 tax return. The claim, which originated with a pseudonymous Reddit poster and has already spread to Fox News, fails to note that while the Clintons’ 2015 return shows that they did have a roughly $700,000 capital loss carried over from a prior year, that loss originates with the financial crash of 2008, and they received only a $3,000 deduction for those losses and paid $3.2 million in federal income taxes in 2015.

The New York Times reported October 1 that after declaring “a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns,” Trump may have “legally avoid[ed] paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years,” according to tax documents the paper obtained. Utilizing “tax rules especially advantageous to wealthy filers,” writes theTimes, Trump could have used the massive “financial wreckage he left behind in the early 1990s” to “cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income over an 18-year period.” The Trump campaign has struggled to explain the revelation, but it has not denied the suggestion that Trump avoided paying nearly two decades of federal income tax.

Last night, Reddit commenter “TheGoldenDon” claimed on the pro-Trump Reddit page “The_Donald” that “Hillary Clinton recorded a $700k loss to avoid paying taxes in 2015.” The post included an image from the Clintons’ return which shows that the Clintons had a net long-term capital loss of $699,540 carried over from a prior tax year. The image was picked up by the conservative blog Zero Hedge, which stated that the returns show that Hillary Clinton “Used Same Tax Avoidance ‘Scheme’ As Trump.”

The claim rocketed through the conservative media and has been repeatedly cited on this morning’s Fox & Friends, where co-host Ainsley Earhardt claimed that the “$700,000 loss” shows that “Hillary did the same thing” as Trump. In fact, as the next page of the tax returns show, while the Clintons claimed a $700,000 capital loss carried over from a prior year, they could take a deduction for only of $3,000 for that loss:

-snip-

http://www.nationalmemo.com/todays-big-lie-the-clintons-avoided-taxes-just-like-trump-no-they-didnt/

[underpants]

1. Thanks. Saw this on FB.

I am the voice of liberalism and the left to some old Army buddies. They tag me in stuff from C-league FB-ready conservative sites. WHAT ABOUT THIS? They ask. I had posted another article explaining HOW Trump pulled his off but this is much better.

[lapfog_1]

2. the rules that allowed the donald to carry forward such a huge loss for so many years

are only available to real estate developers.

[Cicada]

3. No, net operating losses are available to all businesses

Net capital losses are limited to $3000 per year but net operating losses, losses from operating a business mainly, are not limited. You might think a loss from selling a building is a loss from a capital asset. But real estate developers are treated as if they are selling inventory, just like selling food or cars or widgets, rather than treated as selling capital assets. Also the sale of depreciable capital assets used in a trade or business, even if you are not considered in the real estate development business, say you are in the commercial building leasing business, gets a "best of both worlds" treatment. If the sale is profitable it is treated as a capital gain, with a lower tax rate than an ordinary profit. But if the sale produces a loss, then it is treated as an "ordinary" loss, which is NOT subject to the $3000 per year limit on net capital losses. Section 1221 (a)(2) of the Internal Revenue Code is a beautiful thing for those who rent real estate for a living, or for businesses which sell buildings they use in the operation of their businesses.

But this is true for almost all businesses, not just real estate businesses.

[lapfog_1]

6. hmmm... That is not exactly what the IRS expert

on Lawrence O'Donnell show said the other day.

He referred to special provisions available only to real estate developers... perhaps my mistake and it only applied to assets depreciation (of assets actually increasing in value). But I'm certain it had to do with real estate developers only and not available to general businesses.

[Cicada]

9. Trump has proposed new laws ONLY benefiting realty firms such as his

But under current law I can't think of any great tax break just for real estate. But the new law Trump has proposed? It outrageously gives special massive breaks only to businesses just like his. Just the sort of thing that would cause Lawrence, or anyone really, to go through the roof.

[Jim Lane]

10. It's likely that Trump took advantage of loopholes specific to real estate

Some are listed here -- https://www.sanders.senate.gov/download/tax-loopholes-sanders-intends-to-close?inline=file -- because Bernie is working on legislation to close them.

[Cicada]

11. I guess Bernie's list is correct, but limited in practice

There are practical limits to the at risk rules exemption: if realty owned via partnership, corporation or LLC at risk limits still apply at the entity level. I conceded that passive loss limits do not apply to real estate developers, a huge huge break, the king of special breaks for real estate.And on reflection here is another huge break for real estate: you can deduct for the depreciation of buildings even tho their value is rising, not depreciating. Thanks for your post.

[Wounded Bear]

4. The Clintons' tax records are available....

Trump's aren't. Who's hiding something?

[Hortensis]

5. For 30 years the Clintons have paid what we do and more.

That's in spite of the fact that, since they each became trophy speakers and wrote their books, their income has qualified them for a whole bunch of the rich-folk tax dodges.

Which we know they have scrupulously avoided because for 30 years they've made their returns public.

Speaking of US, as in you and me, paying lots of taxes, from New York Magazine:

Paul Ryan ... is promoting his domestic plan, “A Better Way,” ...

Ryan’s agenda includes the normal conservative priorities: deregulation of the financial industry and fossil fuels, repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s cost reforms and coverage expansions, increased military budgets, and deep cuts in spending for poor people. As always, the plan’s centerpiece is a massive, debt-financed tax cut that disproportionately accrues to the very rich. What’s new and different is just how disproportionate it is.

A typical Republican tax cut will give about 40 percent of its tax cuts to the richest one percent. Ryan’s plan, according to a new analysis by the Tax Policy Center, will give three-quarters of its tax cuts to the richest one percent in the first year. And that’s only because the cuts are slowly phased in. By 2025, the highest-earning one percent will enjoy 99.6 percent of the tax cuts. The remaining 0.4 percent will be divided up among the other 99 percent of the country. The new Paul Ryan tax cuts make the Bush tax cuts look like socialism.

Standard disclaimers apply: As everybody knows, Paul Ryan is truly and deeply committed to reducing the budget deficit, and his heart bleeds for the poor, whom he wants to help most of all. So when he learns that he has approved a domestic plan that would transfer resources from the poorest Americans to the very rich at a massive and unprecedented scale, he will no doubt abandon his proposal.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/09/paul-ryan-decides-to-give-rich-people-all-of-the-tax-cuts.html

[Blue Idaho]

7. I'm just a country boy... ever seen a manure spreader at work?

That's what we can expect from the Trump/Fascist campaign from now to the end. Bullshit being flung far and wide. Thanks to the OP for pushing back on another load of manure from the brains of Trump and KellyAnne Con Job! I think it's important not to let the sheer volume of turds stop us from batting them all down.

[riversedge]

8. so so glad when Nov 8 rolls in.