Category: Taxation

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Congress GOP Taxation

WATCH Jake Tapper Humiliate A Republican For Lying About The IRS And Budget Deficit

CNN host Jake Tapper gave GOP Congressman Mike Johnson (LA) a lesson in basic economics and the need for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and wound up making the Republican look like a clueless dolt Tuesday on the network.

The bone of contention was legislation proposed by House Republicans that would not allow the IRS to fill 87,000 open jobs and would also increase the federal deficit.

Tapper began by noting:

“You supported the House bill we just discussed. It would rescind billions of dollars to the IRS. You tweeted, you will vote to ‘stop the 87,000 IRS agents from going after families’. That’s not true. It would be employees, not agents. The Congressional Budget Office says that your bill to get rid of those IRS employees is going to add to the deficit.”

Johnson replied:

“Only in the Bizarro World of Washington would you get an estimate that not spending the money is going to add to the deficit.”

Tapper pushed back:

“Because of enforcement more people who are avoiding paying their taxes. About ten years ago, if you made more than $10 million a year, one out of five people like that would be audited. Now it’s down to 3.6 percent. The wealthy people are getting away with not paying their taxes. Corporations too.”

Rather than admit Tapper was correct, Johnson decided to lie:

“The intent of hiring all of these new agents would have the effect of going after hard-working families and small businesses. That is not a Republican talking point. That comes from the Joint Committee on Taxation. When the Joint Committee on Taxation publishes something, it’s given a lot of weight. They’re nonpartisan.”

That’s when Tapper hit back by reminding the congressman:

“But I quoted the CBO, the CBO is nonpartisan too!”

Johnson:

“The CBO doesn’t have a lot of credibility right now. Their analysis is wildly inaccurate in a lot of ways and they don’t always do appropriate analysis.”

Tapper then asked the most important question:

“Do you think there’s a problem in this country of wealthy individuals and companies not paying their fair share in taxes?”

The congressman responded:

“That’s been a problem, of course, but it’s — we’re not preventing that. The IRS has an important job to go after tax cheats, absolutely, and we support that. We want these things to be done properly.”

But for it to be done properly requires IRS employees to do the work of tracking down tax cheats. Congressman Johnson and other Republicans say they want to stop tax fraud, but then they turn around the try to hamstring the IRS. As usual, they’re just grandstanding and using bullshit instead of facts.

Here’s the video:

Categories
Crime Donald Trump Taxation

Trump’s Tax Returns Show At Least 26 Instances Of Fraud That He Can Be Prosecuted For

Now that we have six years of former president Donald Trump’s tax returns, experts say he should be very worried about upcoming criminal charges against him on multiple counts of tax fraud.

The returns show that Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, have been taking advantage of massive tax breaks that he vigorously lobbied Congress for over the decades.

David Cay Johnston, author of “The Big Cheat: How Donald Trump Fleeced America and Enriched Himself and His Family,” said Friday during an appearance on CNN that one thing stood out to him upon initial inspection of Trump’s tax returns from the years 2015 to 2020:

“They don’t show he’s successful at all.”

Johnston then elaborated:

“They clearly show that he took advantage of every lawful method of tax avoidance including ones he lobbied Congress for in 1992, successfully lobbied them for, that were enormously beneficial to him but also show at a minimum 26 examples of where Donald crossed the line. and engaged in what I believe can be prosecuted as criminal tax fraud.”

Asked for specifics, Johnston explained:

“Donald in 1984 filed tax returns that showed businesses — a business with zero revenue and $600,000 of expenses, while the city of New York and the state of New York, after trials Donald demanded, the judges held these were civil tax fraud. Well, that put him on notice he can’t do that. He did it 26 times over the six years and that is powerful evidence of criminal intent, he knew he shouldn’t do it, he did it anyway.

“And why did he get away with it? Well, being in control of the federal government, he blocked the turning over of his tax returns, he blocked the audits that are required by law and for years he didn’t receive any serious mention from the IRS auditors.”

Categories
Donald Trump Social Media Taxation

Trump Posts Threats As His Tax Returns Are Released: ‘Going To Lead To Horrible Things’

The House Ways and Means Committee released six years of failed former president Donald Trump’s tax returns this morning, and at first blush it certainly appears that the ex-president may well have manipulated the numbers to keep his tax burden low, including not paying a dime in taxes some years.

CNN reports that during the first and last years Trump was in the White House, he paid almost nothing in taxes.

The returns, long shrouded in secrecy, were released to the public on Friday by the House Ways and Means Committee, the culmination of a battle over their disclosure that went to the Supreme Court. They confirm a report issued from the Joint Committee on Taxation that Trump claimed large losses before and throughout his presidency that he carried forward to reduce or practically eliminate his tax burden. For example, his returns show that he carried forward a $105 million loss in 2015 and $73 million in 2016.

The committee also included an analysis of Trump’s tax returns, and it too raises all sorts of questions about how he and his company, the Trump Organization, managed to have such a miniscule tax liability.

Included with the committee’s report was an analysis of the numbers from each of the six Trump tax returns by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. Among the JCT’s findings, the then-president paid very little federal income tax in 2017 – just $750 – and nothing in 2020. The report also showed Trump paid a combined $1.1 million in federal income taxes in 2018 and 2019, a stark contrast to the $750 he paid in 2017 and $0 in 2020.

For many years, prior to his running for president, a New York Times investigation showed that Trump had claimed huge net operating losses that he was allowed to carry forward and apply to future tax years, which greatly reduced or simply wiped out his annual income tax liability.

For example, the JCT report noted that Trump carried forward $105 million in losses on his 2015 return, $73 million in 2016, $45 million in 2017 and $23 million in 2018.

Minutes after the tax returns were made public, Trump issued a statement via his spokesperson, Liz Harrington, which at times reads like a threat.

“The Democrats should have never done it, the Supreme Court should have never approved it, and it’s going to lead to horrible things for so many people. The great USA divide will now grow far worse. The radical, left Democrats have weaponized everything, but remember, that is a dangerous two-way street!”

There was also this:

“The ‘Trump’ tax returns once again show how proudly successful I have been and how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive for creating thousands of jobs and magnificent structures and enterprises.”

He sounds furious and nervous. That alone tells you the tax returns contain evidence of criminal behavior.

Categories
Crime Donald Trump Taxation

Trump’s Tax Returns Suggest He May Have Committed Tens Of Millions In Fraud

The House Ways and Means Committee voted Tuesday to release one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump’s tax returns, a move that he has been trying to prevent for years.

CNN reports:

The committee also released a report Tuesday that detailed six years’ worth of the former president’s tax returns, including his claims of massive annual losses that significantly reduced his tax burden.

Chairman Richard Neal and fellow Democrats said Tuesday that the records they obtained showed that the presidential audit program failed to work as intended. The Massachusetts Democrat charged that the required audit of Trump’s taxes “did not occur,” as his returns were only subjected to the mandatory audit once, in 2019, after Democrats inquired.

“The research that was done as it relates to the mandatory audit program was nonexistent,” Neal told reporters after the committee hearing.

Even though the full returns haven’t yet been made public, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), said Tuesday evening on CNN that Trump had tens of millions of dollars in questionable deductions that suggest massive tax fraud, telling host Erin Burnett:

“I think you will see tens of millions of dollars in these returns that were claimed without adequate substantiation. The extent to which the IRS made an effort to get that substantiation, I invite you to look at the reports. But I think you’ll be surprised by how little there is, and I have my doubts that another taxpayer could go into audit and provide as little as was provided here and expect to have a completed audit.”

Doggett’s comments were echoed by Trump biographer Tim O’Brien in a column he wrote for Bloomberg.

What a fine mess he has gotten himself into. There are certainly more surprises to come, but a pair of summaries of the House Ways and Means Committee’s analysis of Trump’s personal and business tax records from 2015 through 2020 contained interesting revelations that will trouble the former president and certainly draw the attention of prosecutors.

O’Brien said of special interest are the deductions Trump took to reduce his taxable income:

“The records question the validity of about $300 million in tax deductions claimed by a skein of Trump holding companies for such write-offs as charitable giving, operating losses and business expenses. Both reports speculate that about $51,000 was given to his three eldest children as gifts, but may have been disguised as loans to avoid tax payments.

“As more information about his finances surfaces in coming days, it will be a reminder of the extent to which the former president played a shell game with his wealth and business interests while in power — and what he might try to get away with again if he occupies the Oval Office in the future.”

As long suspected, the reason Trump never voluntarily released his tax returns is because they contain detailed information about his financial crimes and who he does business with.

Categories
GOP Whining Taxation U.S. Senate

WATCH Sen. Blumenthal Shut Down ‘Preposterous’ Lindsey Graham For Lying About The IRS And Taxes

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) had more than enough of South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham’s lies Sunday and shut him down during a joint appearance the two made on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

The two senators were invited on to discuss the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which is on the verge of passing in the U.S. Senate, even though Graham says he won’t support the legislation no matter how amendments are added or changes made, and tried to raise the specter that adding more IRS agents would lead to some sort of tax Gestapo, remarking:

“Hiring 86,000 more IRS agents, if that makes you feel better, you missed a lot. They’re coming after waitresses and Uber drivers and everybody else to collect more taxes. So if you think growing the IRS is good for you, you’re wrong.”

Host Dana Bash asked Blumenthal if he wanted to reply to his colleague, and he took her up on the offer:

“I think the IRS is going to target the highest income Americans. As the saying goes, that’s where the money is, that’s where they’re going to look to collect.”

He then added:

“The idea there’s going to be this army of IRS agents descending on the average Americans is preposterous. Tax fairness is what we need. For the biggest corporations in this country to pay no taxes, for them to do stock buybacks that benefit the shareholders? For example in the case of oil companies, they are making three to four times they did last year. What are they doing with those excess windfall profits? Lowering gasoline prices? No, they are doing stock buybacks and they ought to pay a tax on it.”

Poor Lindsey! He can’t admit that the real reason he won’t support cracking down on rich tax cheats is because those same crooks are major contributors to his campaign.

Good on Sen. Blumenthal for calling Graham out and shutting him down. The last thing we need more of is GOP bullshit and excuses.