New York Times:
Donald J. Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years, records obtained by The New York Times show.
The 1995 tax records, never before disclosed, reveal the extraordinary tax benefits that Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, derived from the financial wreckage he left behind in the early 1990s through mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos, his ill-fated foray into the airline business and his ill-timed purchase of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.
Tax experts hired by The Times to analyze Mr. Trump’s 1995 records said that tax rules especially advantageous to wealthy filers would have allowed Mr. Trump to use his $916 million loss to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income over an 18-year period.The "wink wink nudge nudge" here is that Trump is a tax dodger. That is the wrong takeaway.
When a wealthy person has a bad year like Trump did in 1995, they can create an awesome tax dodge for years to come. And our tax code lets them:
The tax experts consulted by The Times said nothing in the 1995 documents suggested any wrongdoing by Mr. Trump, even if the extraordinary size of the loss he declared would have probably attracted extra scrutiny from I.R.S. examiners. “The I.R.S., when they see a negative $916 million, that has to pop out,” Mr. Rosenfeld said.Mind you, this is not a suggestion to "fix" the tax code. That won't happen (the wealthy contribute far too much to political campaigns). How about we dump the income tax instead?
By the way, the hypocrisy from the New York Times in this story is staggering:
Forbes:
More recently, for tax year 2014, The New York Times paid no taxes and got an income tax refund of $3.5 million even though they had a pre-tax profit of $29.9 million in 2014. In other words, their post-tax profit was higher than their pre-tax profit. The explanation in their 2014 annual report is, “The effective tax rate for 2014 was favorably affected by approximately $21.1 million for the reversal of reserves for uncertain tax positions due to the lapse of applicable statutes of limitations.” If you don’t think it took fancy accountants and tax lawyers to make that happen, read the statement again.Speaking of the New York Times, from their original story:
The documents consisted of three pages from what appeared to be Mr. Trump’s 1995 tax returns. The pages were mailed last month to Susanne Craig, a reporter at The Times who has written about Mr. Trump’s finances. The documents were the first page of a New York State resident income tax return, the first page of a New Jersey nonresident tax return and the first page of a Connecticut nonresident tax return. Each page bore the names and Social Security numbers of Mr. Trump and Marla Maples, his wife at the time. Only the New Jersey form had what appeared to be their signatures.
The three documents arrived by mail at The Times with a postmark indicating they had been sent from New York City. The return address claimed the envelope had been sent from Trump Tower.So they printed tax returns from an anonymous source? That sounds illegal, since tax returns can't be released to the public without the filer's authorization. But what would you expect from the tax-dodging New York Times?
Speaking of the Left...
Politico:
Hacked audio of a conversation between Hillary Clinton and donors during a February fundraising event shows the Democrat nominee describing Bernie Sanders supporters as "children of the Great Recession" who are "living in their parents’ basement."Why is it politicians love to make generalizations about the people who are opposed to them? From Obama's "clinging to guns and religion" comment, to Romney's 47% comment, politicians seem to enjoy lumping their opponents together in one neat package, which they can then disregard with impunity.
Speaking at a Virginia fundraiser hosted by former U.S. ambassador Beatrice Welters, Clinton says in a clip released by the Free Beacon that many of her former primary opponent's supporters sought things like “free college, free health care,” saying that she preferred to occupy the space "from the center-left to the center-right" on the political spectrum.
These are the kind of generalizations to be expected from a KKK member, not a politician running for office. But this kind of small-minded thinking is what Americans do, on both sides of the political spectrum. Our politicians are merely a reflection of our own failings.
Just because it doesn't involve race doesn't make it non-prejudicial.
In other news....
The Guardian:
Reporter who quit on air to fight for pot legalization faces decades in prison
Charlo Greene did not plan to curse on live television, but on 22 September 2014, the words came pouring out.
Then a reporter for KTVA, a station in Alaska, Greene ended her segment on marijuana by revealing that she was a proponent of legalization – and was the owner of the Alaska Cannabis Club, the subject of her news report.
...Greene quickly became a full-time cannabis advocate, working to help Alaskans access pot after the state became the third in the US to legalize recreational pot in November 2014.
But despite the voter-approved initiative, Alaska has not helped her start a legitimate marijuana operation. On the contrary, the state launched a series of undercover operations and raids at her club, ultimately charging her with eight serious criminal offenses of “misconduct involving a controlled substance”.Make that 14 offenses, according to this update:
Update | 29 September 2016: The most recent charges against Charlo Greene in her marijuana case include six more offenses than the original indictment, according to a spokeswoman for the Alaska attorney general’s office. Instead of eight counts for a total of 24 years in prison, she is facing 14 offenses for a possible 54 years.
Reached by phone on Thursday, Greene said she was unaware that she was facing a sentence twice as harsh as the original indictment filed against her last year.But here is the strange part:
Alaska has a complicated history of confusing and contradictory marijuana rules. The state was the first to legalize cannabis for in-home use in the 1970s and passed a formal medical law in 1998. Officials, however, never created a system for licensing medical dispensaries, meaning users had few legal options.
“No one could ever agree on what the state of the law in Alaska actually was,” said Robert MacCoun, a Stanford law professor.
But once weed became legal, Greene grew determined. She was particularly moved after meeting an older woman with a neurological disorder who was forced to buy marijuana on the streets – at one point leading her to be robbed at gunpoint.
The reporter organized a private patients’ association, which soon became more than just a hobby. Eventually, she decided to use her media job to unveil her cannabis club.
...The 2014 measure – which legalized the manufacture, sale and possession of marijuana – went into effect in February 2015. The state, however, had not yet finalized its regulations for retail operations and in the interim, the Alaska Cannabis Club allowed people to purchase “memberships” – supplying marijuana when members made “donations”.
Detectives immediately targeted the operation, with six undercover purchases and two raids in a five-month period, records show.
...Cynthia Franklin, director of the state’s alcohol and marijuana control office, said that Greene’s club and two other businesses are facing consequences for launching before regulations were in place.Huh? 54 years in jail for doing something which was LEGAL? As the article points out:
But even if Greene’s club was premature, critics said she should’ve been issued a fine or citation in line with the punishment for selling alcohol without a liquor license.To paraphrase Monty Python, Alaska is a silly place.
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