Category: Taxation

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Congress Economics GOP Taxation

WATCH A CNBC Host Tell Kevin McCarthy He’s A Hypocrite For Refusing To Repeal The Trump Tax Cuts

CNBC host Sara Eisen repeatedly asked Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) why he’s refusing to repeal the Trump tax cuts as part of the ongoing debate over raising the nation’s debt ceiling.

McCarthy was in New York to discuss the debt ceiling and stabilizing financial markets, and he wondered if Eisen would allow the country to continue to tax and spend: “Would you just raise the limit?”

Eisen replied, “Well, if it meant playing with America’s standing and full faith and credit of U.S. government debt, I feel like you can deal with the spending in other ways, which is totally legitimate.”

When McCarthy said debt can only be reduced with massive spending cuts, Eisen wondered, “You did it (raised the debt ceiling) three times in the Trump administration.”

The Speaker protested, “We never raised the debt ceiling by itself.”

Eisen: “And tax cuts. That was like $2 trillion in deficit.”

When McCarthy said those tax cuts had been good for the economy, Eisen countered, “So I was going to ask you about taxes because I wonder, because you want to extend the Trump tax cuts, correct? But isn’t that a little hypocritical when you’re talking about finding savings everywhere and being on an unsustainable fiscal path?”

In response, McCarthy resorted to his favorite trick: He lied.

“How’s that hypocritical when it’s bringing tax cuts, tax savings? I will always advocate for the idea that we are streamlining our tax policies, that we’re also streamlining our regulation.”

Someone please explain the basics of economics to Kevin McCarthy. It’s clear he has no damn idea what he’s talking about.

Here’s the video from CNBC:

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.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noDO3M-blwk&feature=emb_logo

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.

Categories
Donald Trump Joe Biden Taxation

White House Throws Major Shade At Trump With Statement On Release Of Joe Biden’s 2020 Tax Return

Monday was officially Tax Day for American taxpayers. Millions of us had to make sure we got our returns into the IRS before the midnight deadline.

As you might expect, the tax deadline also applies to the president of the United States, but during the Trump administration there was a running joke that even if the Donald did actually file a return, he probably did so under protest and may have even taken Internal Revenue to court in order to avoid having to fork over the money.

That’s what makes the statement from the Biden administration regarding the current president’s tax returns even more brilliant in the way it’s clearly meant to throw some epic shade at the previous head of state. Just take a look at this:

Now THAT’S what you call professional trolling, and it was an enormous hit on social media, where you could almost hear people standing and applauding:

https://twitter.com/boley_baxton/status/1394412133916495872?s=20

https://twitter.com/softsoulcomplex/status/1394418575289556992?s=20

Kudos to the White House. Well done.

 

Categories
GOP GOP Whining Joe Biden Taxation The Biden Administration

Chris Christie Claims Biden’s Tax Increases Are ‘Socialism’ And Gets Slapped Down By Angela Rye

You can tell that former New Jersey GOP Gov. Chris Christie is planning to run for president in 2020 because he’s already using the “socialism” scare word when discussing President Joe Biden’s planned capital gains tax cut to fund infrastructure programs.

But while Christie was spouting talking points, he quickly got his head handed to him by Democratic strategist Angela Rye, who told him and Republican operative Sarah Fagan:

“I think it’s so rich to hear folks talking about Joe Biden’s far-left agenda. If it is too far left to sign 60 executive orders overturning the hatred that was in Donald Trump’s executive orders — at least 23 of them — if it is far left to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord, if it’s far left to end the Muslim travel ban, if it is far left to restore the partnership with the World Health Organization then I think most of the country is far left.”

That led Christie to claim that Biden’s proposals aren’t popular with the American people. What he neglected to mention is that a recent poll showed 59% of those surveyed said they support the Biden infrastructure program:

“Look, we can set up strawmen and say he overturned this executive order but that’s not what we’re talking about. The capital gains issue is nothing more than income redistribution. It’s socialism.”

Rye could be heard laughing as Christie spoke, and she was more than ready for him, slapping him down with this retort:

“It’s so interesting to hear this allegation of socialism,” she said. “I know these are buzzwords that work very well with the Republican Party so congratulations for using them this morning.

“But we have people in a pandemic that you said wouldn’t matter by the time you get to the fall, and on the left there’s a conversation happening about student loan debt. How much should be forgiven? $50,000 vs. $10,000. And we’re talking about a capital gains increase when you all just had basically the reparations we’ve been asking for [in] your last tax proposal. So I don’t even understand what we’re talking about here.”

One other thing on capital gains taxes: The vast majority of Americans never have to pay them. The wealthiest taxpayers do. And taxing them won’t do any long-term damage to the economy, despite what conservatives try to claim.

Nice try, Chris, but Angela Rye made sure your lie was exposed and countered with facts.

Here’s the video from ABC News: