Earlier this morning we wrote about the New York Times article that exposed Trump’s 1995 tax returns and its $916mm net loss. Without any evidence whatsoever, the New York Times used the existence of the net loss to argue that Trump likely hasn’t paid taxes in the past 20 years (see “Trump “Deep Throat” Emerges: Someone Leaks Donald’s ’95 Tax Filing To The NYT“).
Of course, as anyone with any financial sense at all knows, net operating losses are a very common tax deduction used by most corporations, including the New York Times (as we pointed out earlier), to offset taxable gains. Is it really a shock to anyone that corporations don’t pay taxes when they lose money? So, from a practical standpoint, the only thing the New York Times really “uncovered” was that Trump lost a whole lot of money on bad casino deals back in the mid-90s which, of course, we all knew already.
But, the facts have not stopped the main stream media from launching a full-on attack against Trump, proving once again that, in the best case scenario, they’re completely ignorant of basic financial concepts or, in the worst case, they’re simply once again exposing their own extreme political bias.
The first example of grandstanding over the Trump tax “issue” comes to us via CNN’s Jake Tapper on a State of the Union interview with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Here are a couple of the priceless, “well-informed” one-liners offered up by Tapper:
“Donald Trump said during the debate that not paying federal income taxes makes him smart. Does that mean the rest of who don’t look for every possible loophole and provisions to avoid paying our fair share of taxes…does that mean the rest of us are stupid?”
“I think that there are a lot of very very successful businessmen and women who pay federal income taxes and don’t look for every single opportunity there is to avoid paying them.”
“I think most Americans are probably offended. I know most Americans pay their federal income taxes.”
“Mr. Mayor, in 2012, Donald Trump tweeted ‘half of Americans don’t pay income tax despite crippling government debt.’ He is in that half that does not pay federal income taxes despite crippling government debt. When he rails against the junky infrastructure, when he rails against La Guardia Airport, when he talks about how bridges are collapsing, is he not responsible at least in part for the fact that these things are not being repaired?”
If Tapper could please provide his extensive research backing up his claim that a lot of “very successful businessmen and women” choose to not take advantage of common income tax deductions and instead pay more in federal income taxes than is actually due, we would very much appreciate it. If true, we suspect a lot of shareholders and lenders would be very interested in that particular information.
Meanwhile, political commentator Van Jones also went on State of the Union with Tapper to argue that Trump helped to write the tax code to his own advantage.
“It is in fact true that if Donald Trump lost a billion dollars, think about this, lost a billion dollars he could wind up as a winner, legally in his taxes for a generation. Why is that? Is that because he’s a genius?”
“It’s because billionaires have armies of lobbyists to write the rules. Here’s the deal if you’re obeying horrible rules that you helped to write, it doesn’t make you a genius. It makes you part of the corruption.”
And finally, here is some footage of Giuliani answering all the same questions from former Bill Clinton Communications Director, George Stephanopoulos, on ABC’s “This Week.“
“My response is he’s a genius … [an] absolute genius.”
“This was a perfectly legal application of the tax code, and he would’ve been a fool not to take advantage of it.”
“You have an obligation when you run a business to maximize the profits. And if there is a tax law that says, ‘I can deduct this,’ you deduct it. If you fail to deduct it, people can sue you.”
Rudy Giuliani responds to Trump tax revelations: “He’s a genius” #ThisWeek https://t.co/ptYCKM042u
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) October 2, 2016
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