2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumWas Trump's $916,000,000 tax write off legal?
The media has been stressing that Trump's tax write off was a perfectly legal exercise of a provision in the tax code. This assumes that there was no concomitant chicanery concerning the loss itself.
The very excellent, left-leaning conspiracy theorist Joe Cannon has a great article on the possible criminal manipulation of the loss by Trump via the IRS.
Joe was insisting to his readers as far back as last winter that Roger Stone was the brains behind the Trump campaign despite the fact that Stone had no open, public role at the time, so Joe's instincts are often on target. He's also a DU reader who links to this site.
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/
MyNameIsKhan
(2,205 posts)be Interesting, we need to see how he lost this kind of money OR its all a baloney... All hyped up numbers.
Think about this $916 Million in 1995 will be atleast $4 billion now...
etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)... but generally not considered "right" or "moral" .... and not something we would want to have a president to have done.
Apparently the way he did it completely screwed investors over.
lapucelle
(18,252 posts)Joe Cannon is questioning whether the loss that allowed it was genuine or a manipulation like debt parking. Similarly, if the loss was due to a bankruptcy, Trump would have had to claim any debt forgiveness as income.
etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)the rules are different for mutual funds and real-estate (we reportedly have congress to thank for that).
I will look for links to the discussions (again, this was my understanding of the reporting ... I have no true understanding of the situation other than that)
etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)The reporting was pretty clear that just because it may be legal ... it doesn't mean its ethical
http://www.npr.org/2016/10/02/496303458/how-donald-trump-could-have-not-paid-income-taxes-for-18-years
"Here's the magic of real estate," says Lee Sheppard, contributing editor of Tax Notes, a Washington-based journal. "Congress, which writes the tax laws, affirmatively subsidizes commercial real estate through the mechanism of the tax code."
http://www.npr.org/2016/10/03/496314538/trumps-financial-moves-in-the-90s-genius-or-colossal-failure
MyNameIsKhan
(2,205 posts)etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)At the time, the tax code allowed such losses to be "carried forward" up to 15 years, offsetting income and reducing or even eliminating tax liability and carried backward on income up to 3 years prior. (The allowance has since been changed to carry forward 20 years and carry back 2 years.) The code is particularly flexible when it comes to real estate professionals like Trump.
scscholar
(2,902 posts)MyNameIsKhan
(2,205 posts)That would have been interesting...