Donald Trump and taxes, finally the truth?
The "New York Times" had access to tax documents that the president has consistently refused to disclose. He reportedly only paid $ 750 in federal income tax in 2016 and 2017, and is reportedly losing millions of dollars
The tension is growing. A few hours before the first debate between Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden, which will take place Tuesday evening, the New York Times dropped a bomb. The daily had access to tax documents that the Republican has so far refused to disclose. Results? In 2016, the year he was elected, and in 2017, he reportedly paid only $ 750 (697 francs) in federal income tax. And for ten years that amount was ... zero. This is enough to give Joe Biden ammunition for the first face-to-face. Hours earlier, the president had suggested on Twitter that his rival should be given a doping test, because he would seek to "improve his performance" in an artificial way.
I will be strongly demanding a Drug Test of Sleepy Joe Biden prior to, or after, the Debate on Tuesday night. Naturally, I will agree to take one also. His Debate performances have been record setting UNEVEN, to put it mildly. Only drugs could have caused this discrepancy ???
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 27, 2020
A different story
The revelations of the New York Times are reacting. “The New York Times has obtained tax information for more than twenty years regarding Mr. Trump and the hundreds of companies that make up his group, including detailed information about his first two years in office. This does not include his income tax returns for 2018 or 2019, ”the article said. According to the newspaper, if Donald Trump has evaded taxes so much, it is because he has reported more losses of money than gains, several of his companies, including golf clubs and his Washington hotel, having shown very poor results. He has also been in dispute for ten years with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the US tax administration, over the legitimacy of a tax refund of $ 72.9 million (67.4 million francs) that 'he asked and received after declaring huge losses, recalls the title. An unfavorable judgment could cost him more than 100 million dollars (92.4 million francs).
Also according to the New York Times, the statements obtained "tell a fundamentally different story from the one he sold to the American public", that of a businessman "who collects hundreds of millions of dollars a year while accumulating chronic losses that he aggressively uses to avoid paying taxes ”. "Today, as his financial difficulties accumulate, the files show that he depends more and more on the profits of companies which place him in a potential and often direct conflict of interest with his post of president", adds the daily.
The newspaper had already obtained previous statements in 2016, thanks to an anonymous submission. Those of 1995 reported losses of 915.7 million dollars (846.3 million francs), enough to allow him to obtain a tax deduction which could have earned him not to pay federal income tax during nearly twenty years.
Information deemed "bogus, totally invented"
Sunday, the president reacted very quickly. To claim that the information is "bogus, totally made up," that he has instead paid "a lot of income tax", both to the IRS and to New York State. Alan Garten, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, speaks for his part of "tens of millions of dollars" in a statement provided to the newspaper. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a young Democrat elected to the House of Representatives and the president's scapegoat, recalled on Twitter that in 2016 and 2017 she herself had paid "thousands" in taxes, as a simple bartender.
In 2016 & ‘17, I paid thousands of dollars a year in taxes *as a bartender.*
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) September 28, 2020
Trump paid $750.
He contributed less to funding our communities than waitresses & undocumented immigrants.
Donald Trump has never cared for our country more than he cares for himself. A walking scam. https://t.co/VZChbp8htu
The president’s tax returns have become a huge sea serpent, in the midst of a fierce legal battle. The "billionaire" is the only president since the 1970s to have refused to make them public, thus raising all kinds of speculation about the real state of his fortune and the reasons pushing him to favor opacity.
In July already, Donald Trump suffered a defeat before the Supreme Court. The Court admitted that New York prosecutor Cyrus Vance was entitled to require the president to send him his tax returns and other banking documents for the period covering the years 2011 to 2018. The purpose of the prosecutor is in particular to determine how porn actress Stormy Daniels, Trump's supposed mistress, received money in the middle of the 2016 election campaign so as not to affect her chances of being elected, and whether this constitutes a violation of campaign financing. The Supreme Court, however, in a second decision, ruled that Congress should not have access to these documents at this time. She preferred to send the case back to the lower courts.
Now some of this information is public, through the New York Times investigation. The media promises more revelations.
