The dementia election – Trump / Biden

[Firestarter]

In 2010, Donald claimed and received an income tax refund totalling $72.9 million (the federal income tax he had paid for 2005 to 2008). That was with the help of legislation entered by President Obama.
Then from 2011 to 2014, “billionaire” Donald paid no federal taxes at all (0).

Where it gets “criminal” behaviour by the Donald is that he never paid those losses back to his handlers/lenders, so he shouldn’t be allowed to deduct it.

Here’s how the NYT one time in the whole long article explains that Donald really is in trouble with the IRS.

If the I.R.S. learns that the owner received anything of value, the allowable losses are reduced to just $3,000 a year. And Mr. Trump does appear to have received something. When the casino bankruptcy concluded, he got 5 percent of the stock in the new company.

The US Supreme Court in a 7-2 vote has decided that there is no reason to block the release of Donald Trump's tax returns to prosecutors, who can now subpoena the former president for his financial documents from January 2011 to August 2019.

But they won't be publicly released (is there more than we already know?): https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/22/poli ... index.html

[Firestarter]

While Trump promised that he wouldn't be paid as US president, it sure looks as if he profited handsomely from "pay-to-play" schemes.

Trump disclosed between $1,613,583,013 and $1,790,614,202 in revenue from the Trump Organization and other outside income during his 4 years as US president: https://www.citizensforethics.org/wp-co ... on-278.pdf

Foreigners looking for a good deal from the US government were more than happy to pay the exorbitant Trump prices, hoping that they would make more from wheeling and dealing with the Donald.

A large portion of the revenue came from his famous properties where lying Donald was often seen during his presidency — Mar-a-Lago, The Trump International Hotel in Washington, and his golf course at Doral in Florida, Bedminster in New Jersey, and Trump National in Virginia.

President Donald even directed government to spend taxpayer's money at his properties over and over again. Trump insisted doing government business at Mar-a-Lago, and even directed VP Mike Pence to stay at Doonbeg when he had meetings on the other side of Ireland.
To top it all, Donald attempted to host the G-7 Conference at his struggling Trump National Doral property.

So now that being president has finally made media personality Trump a genuine billionaire, some question if he will continue to be rewarded for being such a good little goy for his handlers: https://www.citizensforethics.org/repor ... president/

[Firestarter]

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According to the following, President Donald had a much higher revenue in the first 3 years of his presidency.
So if the "reputable" Forbes is right, lying Donald once again wasn't honest, when he disclosed only a maximum of $1,790,614,202 in revenue (or maybe Citizensforethics didn't analyse Donald's disclosure properly?).

From 2017 to 2019, the Donald’s businesses raked in an "estimated $1.9 billion of revenue".
This resulted in $470 million in profits for lying Donald.

Trump’s commercial real estate assets converted something like 50% of their revenue into profit, generating an estimated $313 million of income to President Donald from 2017 to 2019.
This means that they were far more lucrative than the golf courses and clubs, with modest-margins: https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexand ... in-office/
(https://archive.is/SlwA8)


I'm afraid that the following isn't good enough for Trump fans, but as I'm no expert at taxes (especially outside of the Netherlands), this is the best I could do on such short notice; a simple calculation (estimate) of Trump's tax rate in 2016 and 2017...

If we multiply $470 million in profits with 2/3, this means that Donald had an income of about $313 million in total in 2016 and 2017, in which years he paid a total of $1500 in taxes. This means that "billionaire" Donald Trump had an effective tax rate of 0.0005% for those 2 years.
I guess that many people (probably excluding the money laundering billionaires that at the same time call for "progressive" tax rates) would settle for such a tax rate!