9 Key Points About Trump’s Income Taxes (And Many More Questions) - David Cay Johnston

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http://www.nationalmemo.com/9-key-points-about-trumps-income-taxes-and-many-more-questions/

excerpt from lengthy article:

. . .

I revealed Trump’s income and tax payments from his early years in my book Temples of Chance. In 1977 he made $118,530 and paid $42,386. The next year Trump reported an income of negative $406,379 and paid nothing. In 1979 he reported negative $3.4 million and again paid no taxes.

No doubt that reflects what Romney hinted: Trump may well report negative income and live tax-free, an issue the mogul and I once discussed at the old Trump Castle Casino in Atlantic City. (Incidentally my employer, then The Philadelphia Inquirer, paid for my lunch.)

Trump seemed to want to interfere with the IRS audit when he tweeted: “As far as my return, I want to file it. I will absolutely give my return but I’m being audited now.”

Asking the IRS to close the audit or face criticism seems innocuous, unless you understand what is going on politically with tax law enforcement.

Congressional Republicans, sometimes with the acquiescence of President Obama, have cut the IRS budget so severely that its computer systems are starting to fail and its capacity to pursue major tax cheats is drying up from a political El Niño. Yet wage earners are still being fully taxed. Thanks to shoddy reporting, most Americans believe the IRS “targeted” conservative groups seeking to influence elections — the so-called C4 organizations — giving Congress an excuse to cut the IRS budget. In fact, a mid-level manager in Kentucky who is a self-described conservative Republican ordered the focus on C-4 groups. And the documents show he was doing his duty because many of the C4 applications stated that the groups were partisan, which Congress has made a no-no for tax exemption.

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