Donald Trump has avoided paying taxes. Everyone knows that, and the best defense his supporters can muster is that he will magically turn around and fix all those loopholes when he gets into office. And now further revelations from the New York Times make it very clear just how far Trump stretched these loopholes to avoid paying taxes.
As the Times describes, Trump in the 1990s begged banks to forgive loans they made out to him even as he bought a $250,000 engagement ring for Marla Maples. The banks forgave the debt, but the IRS states that forgiven debt counts as taxable income. Trump would still have to pay the related taxes to the forgiven debt. His accountants had been busy at work, and one assumes they had passed their CPA exams.
But Trump got out of his tax bill by blatantly exploiting a loophole which allowed corporations to essentially swap stock purportedly worth the value of the debt for the debt. This allowed corporations to claim that the debt was not actually cancelled, even though the given stock is really worthless.
However, Trump’s attempts to exploit this tactic went too far. His own tax lawyers told him that these tactics were incredibly risky and would likely invite the ire of the IRS for tax dodging. But Trump ignored them and pushed on, showing just how amenable he will be to expert advice like more moderate Republicans like to claim.
Trump may like to claim that all of this shows that he is a smart businessman and that he will be able to shut down those same loopholes he exploited. But while Trump may talk the talk, Clinton as a Senator actually voted in favor of shutting down debt for stock loopholes in 2004.
The fact that Trump has dodged tax bills and stretched the definition of legality would shut down any other campaign, but Trump supporters will not be shaken. They are victims of a con man, and it is always incredibly difficult to persuade con victims that they have been conned in the first place.
But it is also said that you cannot cheat an honest man and those conned supporters epitomize that. Trump has been able to unite so many groups not because they believe everything he says, but because each group believes that Trump is going to backstab some other group of his supporters while he enacts everything they want.
The reality is that Trump will backstab and con all of them, just as he has used similar tactics in his refusal to pay those who have worked for his campaign. Trump is willing to exploit every loophole and tactic to enrich himself at the cost of the American people and anyone who has ever worked for him. But now his supporters want us to believe that this exploitation is a moral good as long as Trump uses it against dirty others like Mexicans or Muslims.
As Trump’s campaign continues to trail, it is important that newspaper like the Times pore over Trump’s sordid record and expose how his supporters were willing to condone him anyways. It is the best way for history to ensure that no one in the future looks at Trump as anything more than a crook willing to cheat the American people.
