WILL TRUMP’S TAX RETURN ISSUES BRING HIM ANOTHER 4 PINOCCHIO RATING?

…One of Trump's Tax liabilities

 

Regardless of Trump’s statements, tax returns can tell us a lot

 

“There’s nothing to learn from them.”  This was from Donald Trump, in an interview with the Associated Press, explaining why he won’t release his tax returns,.  However, Donald Trump has a history of promising to release his tax returns, but then not doing it, so no one really knows what we would learn?

 

With the “Birther-in-Chief” back in 2011, when Trump was pushing the movement questioning whether President Obama was born in the United States, Trump told ABC News that he would release his tax returns if Obama released his long-form birth certificate. “I’d love to give my tax returns,” he said.  But once Obama released his long-form birth certificate, Trump held back saying: “At the appropriate time I’m going to do it,” he said. As expected, the appropriate time apparently never came.

 

Then, going forward to 2012, Trump went after Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, for being so slow to release his tax returns. Trump was asked by Fox News if he’d ever have a problem releasing his own returns.  “No,” Trump said. “I actually think that it’s a great thing when you can show that you’ve been successful, and that you’ve made a lot of money, that you’ve employed a lot of people. I actually think that it’s a positive.”  Yeah, right.

 

Today, Trump says he won’t release his taxes.  He is once again using the old audit excuse, even though the IRS has published an official notice that there would be no problem of releasing the tax returns during an audit.  In fact, going back to the 1970’s, Richard Nixon released his tax returns during an audit.  (Unfortunately for the then President, when Nixon was audited, he was found to have neglected to pay almost $500K in due taxes.)

 

Now, Trump’s taxes from 2002 to 2008 have been cleared without penalty, but he’s still not releasing even those old returns. 

 

One seriously wonders what he’s trying to hide?

 

Could it be that he’s not worth as much as he’s been saying?  Could it be that he’s really not such a good businessman and that he’s so leveraged by debt and loans that he could have some businesses on the edge of failure?  It’s well known, and he admits, as to how much he loves “dealing with debt”.  Could he be well over his head in debt?

 

The audit issue is all a bunch of B.S. because Trump himself provided his tax returns from 2000 to 2004 while they were under audit by the IRS, to the Pennsylvania and New Jersey state gambling officials as part of the process of seeking casino licenses in those states.  This was reported back then by CNN.

 

Every presidential nominee since Gerald Ford has presented their tax returns for the public to review.  Even Mitt Romney, who held back for some time, he finally presented his and we all found that he was paying a much smaller percentage than the average American worker.  But even Mitt has posted on Facebook that “it is disqualifying for a modern-day presidential nominee to refuse to release tax returns to the voters, especially one who has not been subject to public scrutiny in either military or public service.”

 

If Trump continues to refuse to do this before the November election,  he would be the first presidential nominee in 40 years to not release his tax returns.  The Former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has released all of her, and her husbands, tax returns for the past 33 years.  Senator Bernie Sanders has released his 2014 tax return, with some attachments missing, but he has said more are on the way.

 

Trump says his lawyers are instructing him to not release them until the audit is completed, which may not be until after the election in November. 

 

The problem with that is this may be good legal advice from his lawyers, but not good advice for a presidential candidate.

 

Besides all that, if Trump is correct and as he says, ““There’s nothing to learn from them,” then what’s the problem in releasing them?

 

Here is the reality:

 

In 2015, Trump filed a financial disclosure form required of presidential candidates. The 92-page document did list assets and liabilities. But the form is not audited for accuracy.  As an example, the Guardian newspaper reported that a Trump golf course is listed in the document as being worth $50 million.  But in a lawsuit, Trump claimed it was only worth $1.4 million.

 

On the other hand, a federal tax return for a business mogul like Trump, is a document that is carefully checked and rechecked by IRS accountants, and it must be accurate, under penalty of law. Contrary to Trump’s claim, based on past tax returns, there are many things that could be learned from a tax return.

 

The tax return will not state a person’s net worth, but it will show Trumps personal annual income and his cash flow.

 

Because Trump is so sensitive as to his level of wealth, he sued author Timothy O’Brien, for his 2005 book “TrumpNation,” that had calculated that Trump was not worth the billions that he claimed. O’Brien had said that Trump was worth just $150 million to $250 million.

 

The discovery in the libel lawsuit required that Trump turn over his tax returns. Trump lost that case, but the tax returns remain sealed, and O’Brien is not permitted to speak about them. “There are reasons, I think, he doesn’t want to give up his tax returns,” O’Brien recently told Politico. “It’s because you will see what his income actually is in those returns.”

 

In the deposition in the O’Brien case, Trump famously said that his net worth fluctuates “with the markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings.”  What the hell does that mean?

 

Was Trump’s case lost because O’Brien’s estimate of his real wealth was correct?  Hmmmm.

 

Four Pinocchio’s

 

…This is becoming a regular Trump rating regarding Trump’s lack of honesty

 

The key things to learn from tax returns are the following:

 

·       Personal income and cash flow

·       Where the income came from (businesses, investment, speeches, dividends, capital gains)

·       Business profits and losses

·       Money donated to charities

·       Money donated to military vet associations

 

Trump has said that he donated $102 million to charity over the past 5 years.  But the Post has reported that none of it was in cash.  It was in free rounds of golf at his golf courses in auctions and raffles.  The tax returns would make Trump’s donations clear to all.

 

Voters would learn whether Trump is taking advantage of certain tax shelters. Any overseas assets must be reported, so voters would also learn how much Trump has invested out of the country.  He keeps saying that as president, he would stop all that.  Well, is he doing that himself today?

 

Finally, the tax returns would disclose what percentage of Trump’s income actually goes to taxes. Voters angry at “billionaires and millionaires” who are perceived as not paying their fair share would learn whether Trump has managed to keep his effective tax rate as low as some members of the 400 richest taxpayers in the United States.

 

The IRS every year discloses information on the taxes of the 400 richest taxpayers, and Trump’s numbers could be compared to this rarefied group. Voters would discover whether Trump even qualifies. In 2013, a minimum annual income of $100 million was required.

 

Mitt Romney, in his Facebook post has of course, assumed the worst.  “There is only one logical explanation for Mr. Trump’s refusal to release his returns: there is a bombshell in them,” he wrote. “Given Mr. Trump’s equanimity with other flaws in his history, we can only assume it’s a bombshell of unusual size.”

 

Tax returns would help lift  the veil of secrecy about Trump’s finances.  It would let voters know whether his claims about his wealth and charitable giving are true, or if he’s just a bombastic man behind the curtain like in the Wizard of Oz.

 

Trump’s tax returns could once again be another opportunity for the Post Fact Checkers to give Mr. Tromp another Four Pinocchio rating for his statements about his actual wealth.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016