Trump's Taxes

 Many of us have heard that Trump only paid $750 in Federal taxes in 2016.  The New York Times came out with the story in hopes that the average American will conclude that Trump is a fraud and not worthy of our trust.  The DFL jumped on the story immediately and came out with attack ads.  Biden even flung out that data at the debate.

They are relying on the fact that 99% of voters don't understand tax credits, tax deductions and the difference between legal tax avoidance and illegal tax evasion.  They just want to fling out all the crap they can right before an election in hopes that they can sway voters if they can convince them that Trump had broken the public trust.

As Paul Harvey would say, "Now here's the rest of the story."

Under the ominous headline “Long-Concealed Records Show Trump’s Chronic Losses and Years of Tax Avoidance,” it claimed that a billionaire who became president of the United States had “paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750.”

That’s in the lead. The first sentence of a story that should set the tone for everything that follows.

Unfortunately for the no-doubt rapidly diminishing number of Americans who actually believe The Times can be trusted, that sentence set a tone of bias and outright dishonesty that the article itself admits in a disguised fact check a long 77 paragraphs later.

Trump did pay millions in taxes those years: $1 million in 2016; $4.2 million in 2017.

“As he settled into the Oval Office, his tax bills soon returned to form,” The Times wrote, deep, deep, deep into the story. “His potential taxable income in 2016 and 2017 included $24.8 million in profits from sources related to his celebrity status and $56.4 million for the loans he did not repay. The dreaded alternative minimum tax would let his business losses erase only some of his liability.

“Each time, he requested an extension to file his 1040; and each time, he made the required payment to the I.R.S. for income taxes he might owe — $1 million for 2016 and $4.2 million for 2017. But virtually all of that liability was washed away when he eventually filed, and most of the payments were rolled forward to cover potential taxes in future years.”

To repeat: Trump “made the required payment to the I.R.S. for income taxes he might owe,” The Times wrote, followed by the figures $1 million for one year, $4.2 million for the second. (Emphasis in the quote added, obviously.)

In other words, Trump did in fact pay considerably more than $750 in taxes in 2016 and 2017 — he just didn’t actually owe what he paid.

In fact, an argument could be made that since those payments actually amounted to overpayments, when Trump’s final liability was established at the laughably low figure of $750, the whole incident redounds to the president’s favor. Since the money wasn’t returned, but “rolled forward to cover potential taxes for future years,” Trump was, in effect, giving the federal government about $5 million until some future date.

The rest of the article amounts to a propaganda gift to the presidential campaign of Democratic nominee Joe Biden, typical of The Times anti-Trump machine.

It’s paragraph after biased paragraphed, stuffed with dollar signs and financial details that make it appear there are all kinds of sordid maneuverings going on, but probably describes the kind of totally legal tax minimization strategies employed by the wealthiest Americans regardless of party.

Is it any wonder that on Sunday, Trump used a White House media briefing to pan The Times piece as “totally false“?

Here;  https://www.westernjournal.com/nyts-hit-piece-includes-fact-check-trump-paid-1-million-2016-4-2-million-2017-us-treasury/?ff_source=Email&ff_medium=SOFbreaking&ff_campaign=wj-breaking&ff_content=libertyalliance

But of course, the damage that the NYT hopes to inflict on Trump may have already been done.  Most people just read headlines and don't bother going to the 9th or 10th paragraph to try and figure out the rest of the story.