So the assumption was always that impeached soon-to-be-outgoing president Donald Trump hid his taxes for a couple of reasons: he wasn’t as rich as he claimed, and it might provide clues to financial crimes. But mostly, because he wasn’t as rich as he claimed.
Now that The New York Times has 15 years of his taxes, it’s all that and even more—he’s also a tax cheat.
There is way too much to unpack, and it will take a while to dig through it all (not to mention the follow-up stories sure to follow). But for starters:
Donald J. Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750.
He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.
Pretty much all of you reading this paid more taxes than supposed “billionaire” Donald Trump.
And then there’s the grift.
In 2012, he took out a $100 million mortgage on the commercial space in Trump Tower. He took nearly the entire amount as a payout, his tax records show. His company has paid more than $15 million in interest on the loan, but nothing on the principal. The full $100 million comes due in 2022 [...]
The balances on those loans had not been paid down by the end of 2018. And the businesses carrying the bulk of the debt — the Doral golf resort ($125 million) and the Washington hotel ($160 million) — are struggling, which could make it difficult to find a lender willing to refinance it.
Trump’s response is laughably stupid (as usual):
It’s laughably easy for him to prove otherwise, but he won’t because he can’t. He’s f’d
Some early reaction:
Much more to follow.
