The New York Times has published part of the tax returns of a private citizen in an effort to score political points for a candidate they endorse, Hillary Clinton. That should be the real headline people pause and think about.
The front pages of the tax returns themselves are essentially a non-issue, representing the 1995 gross business loss incurred by candidate Donald Trump who operates a massive conglomeration of business entities.
The anti-Trump political angle is easily identifiable within the extensive article use of: “could have”, “might be”, “may have”, phrases used throughout the woven narrative. Journalistic “narratives” are rarely based on facts.
The identified $916 million single year operating income loss is no different than current losses of Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and a host of other corporations and businesses.
Actually, Donald Trump’s 1995 loss is smaller than the operating loss the New York Times reported when it sold the Boston Globe in 2013 for a net loss of $1.03 billion.
The Times purchased the Boston Globe in ’93 for $1.1 billion and sold it in 2013 for $70 million, a loss of $1.03 billion. However, for some reason it’s doubtful the Times will publish their own 2013 tax returns. That doesn’t meet the political need.
Despite the best protestations of the Hillary Clinton campaign, there’s nothing dramatic about the Donald Trump tax returns. The only thing illegal or unethical is the illegal nature and unethical mindset of the media outlet who published them.
Against the backdrop of weaponized federal governmental agencies already admitting they have targeted private citizens they considered political opponents, the gleeful willingness of the Clinton campaign to push the New York Times Trump-tax non-story is brutally tone deaf and most likely to backfire.
Just imagine what a Hillary Clinton administration would do to their political opposition with a weaponized cabinet filled with intensely unstable and rabid ideologues.
The vast majority of Americans just don’t like, appreciate or condone the publication of legally bound private information, especially tax filings. The willingness of the New York Times to publish them, and the willingness of the Clinton campaign to exploit them, says more about the ideology of those entities than it does about Donald Trump’s business interests.
The Trump Campaign Responds:
(link)
I hope Trump stays focused and on point re our economy, borders, soldiers/veterans and law and order for starters. Hillary gets him on the defensive too easily. I don’t care about his taxes, Ms. Piggy or his divorce. He is so close to November 8. Let’s make America great again.
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Has anyone considered that Trump may have leaked this? If you think of the long term ramifications: It hashes out the tax return issue on a 20 year old return ( 1 month before the election). After all the hysteria, it will be determined that not only was Trump legal, but brilliant. It drove the newspaper to break the law, and how delicious is that? Give it a few days, and we will start delving into the corrupt relationship this paper has with the Clinton campaign. Total chess move. I think Trump trolled them!
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Trump wins on the issues on law and order, illegal immigration, and jobs. The votes are there for him on the issues, so in-depth media coverage is minimal.
Trump will never win on the bogus Miss Piggy and tax avoidance distractions because the media colludes with Hillary to control the message and make these non-stories big stories.
Trump must resist the distraction bait and focus like a maniac on the issues.
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Maybe Trump’s answer to any and all tax questions should go like this. Say I have paid all that I am required to pay under the law. And if I didn’t do so, I would end up in prison like Irwin Schiff.
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I didn’t read all almost 700 comments, but, Mexico Billionaire Carlos Slim 17% ownership interest of nyt
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….and a $250 million loan to the NYT on top of that!
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Just to show how stupid is a situation in which somebody has a net investment loss of, say, $1,000,000 in one year (let alone hundreds of millions).
A net GAIN of $1,000,000 is fully taxable in the tax year it is attained. Instead, a LOSS of $1,000,000 cannot be written off in full because yearly losses are limited by the IRS to $3,000. Now, ask yourself who benefits from this asymmetry? Answer: your friendly government.
The balance ($997,000) must be written of at the rate of $3,000 per each subsequent tax year. Assuming no future gains are attained, it would take 333.3 years to recover the taxes you pre-paid on this amount in the tax year the gain was attained! Who lives that long? Nobody. Sounds fair? Heck NO!
But, hey, the IRS tries to be reasonable. Any net gains you may have in subsequent years can be written off against the $997,000. So, there is some hope and you might be able to recover your prepaid EXTRA taxes in, say, 5, 10, 20 years or however long it takes to make a new $997,000.
You may ask: who designed this silly system? Answer: the ever money-hungry U.S. Congress, with the backing of the president in office at the time.
In short, that is why Trump could reduce his income tax liability in the years AFTER sustaining his original yuge loss. Calling this TAX avoidance is stupid, unfair, and ignorant. If it is true that the write off may have provided him some relief for 18 years, that is how long it took for him to recover the tax he paid on the initial yuge loss, in 1995.
To me, the absurd clintonesque accusation that he avoided paying tax is one more reason not to vote for HiLIARy, as she has no clue about taxes and so many other important issues facing the country. Clinton propaganda is always directed at lofos, moochers, and envy mongers.
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Yes! Buncha freakin hypocrites!
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Sweet analogy…
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that the corrupt pay-for-play clinton foundation has never had an independent audit???? meh
(nice razor, thanks)
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The Media is trying to help Hilary win. That evil witch has been and insider for over 30 years, it time to get rid of hacks and put an outsider in who has actually created jobs.
.
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Death to the Enemedia!
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Idiot presstitute-seeking-her-place-in-the-sun Susanne Craig, a New York Times Metro reporter who covers government and politics, describes how she got hold of Trump’s tax returns.
“I walked to my mailbox and spotted a manila envelope, postmarked New York, NY, with a return address of The Trump Organization. My heart skipped a beat.
By Saturday — eight days after I had first opened the envelope — we were ready to go to the Trump campaign with our findings. Mr. Trump, through his spokeswoman, did not challenge or confirm the tax records, but he threatened us with legal action if we were to publish them.
Why did the tipster send the documents to me, of all the reporters out there? Probably because I wrote an exhaustive examination of Mr. Trump’s $650 million of debt in August that drew millions of readers.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/03/insider/the-time-i-found-donald-trumps-tax-records-in-my-mailbox.html
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hat the heck is that thing?
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What is it about liberal women that they’re always so unkempt? (I’m assuming that’s a woman.) Yikes! The least she could do is comb her hair.
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If they hadn’t identified, I would have thought this was Malcolm Gladwell.
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Phil Spector’s doppelganger.
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Damn I would send her home from work and tell her not to come back until you look professional (which may take awhile)
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LOL! it’s the NY Times! Not sure if it’s pre or post sex change or which one it decided on, but clearly a stellar rep of the NY Times!
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Or bc the new york times said they would publish them if they ever got em. Now trumo can sue them out of business.
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Trump … Typo
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Ok….so is this woman really this dumb that she gets all excited to get this from the Trump organization and not think that perhaps that’s a little strange? She’s all flattered to be the chosen one??
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She’s waited a Loooooooooooong time for that place in the sun. LOL
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This is a woman?
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My bet is it’s a fake return…
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Fox News Experts just declared: it’s over for Trump! He is not spending enough money. He has not been spending enough money for at least 6 months. Polls are just starting to move to Lyin’Crooked’s favor, ever so slightly but you can take it to the bank, b/c it has happened in the past.
Hillary Clinton is now coronated the President by the Political Insiders; too late for Trump!
It’s Over folks.
Go to sleep; nothing going on here.
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Oh no! Not again. He is finished.
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Now it comes out that Clinton took the same type of loss on her 2015 return that Trump did in 1995.
The same loss Jake Tapper condemned Trump for so severely on Sunday.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-02/clinton-campaign-admits-hillary-used-same-tax-avoidance-scheme-trump
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Tapper is a confirmed ignoramus. He knows nothing about taxes and blabbers as if he did. Typical shameless proglodyte trying to convince lofos, moochers, and dindu nuffins.
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Really good story!
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thanks Ricky! Shows what he might be able to do w/ inherited 20 trillion in debt
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The NYT is a publicly traded company. On any financial website even YAHOO you can go to the SEC/Financials and look at their SEC 10K and 10Q Reports. Every penny they pay in tax is clealry listed as is their profit or loss for each year.
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The New York Times had $1.5 billion in revenue in 2014 and paid no federal income tax!
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Do you have a link for that? The Forbes link on page 1 of comments said they had profit of 29.9 million, and got a 3.5 million refund out of it.
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I’ve said it a million times. This election is like every other one and unlike every other one at the same time.
I’m not the biggest fan of Donald Trump but man Hillary Clinton… That’s hardly someone I would want to vote for,
I think the level of brainwashing going on is nuts. We can’t even deal with the issues of taxation and business interests in an analytic and logical way. Instead it’s just sound bite clips and distortion of the actual realities of why things happened the way they did.
Glad there are blogs like this and even democratic/progressive ones that allow for some actual going into the subject matter.
I run a simple theology/volunteer blog but I count this as a great blog to always check in on 🙂
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Mook is so out of his league
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r/The_Donald has link pointing out that the 1st season of The Apprentice also shows Trump talking about having lost a huge amount of money, only he was saying the’d been billions in debt. A little past 1 minute into the intro shown for each episode of season 1.
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It is NOT required for a presidential candidate to release any of their tax returns. PERIOD.
I tried to do a little research and found, what seems to be when this all started. Shocking, it was a political ploy, and more and more throughout history, it seems that candidates have tried to “out” more years than their opponent to claim transparency!
“Thorndike traced the roots of presidential candidates releasing tax returns back to President Nixon’s famed “Checkers” speech in 1952, where in an attempt to clear his name over controversy surrounding his finances, he spoke about his Cocker Spaniel “Checkers.” As the vice presidential candidate for Dwight Eisenhower, Nixon baited the candidates running against him, Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson and runningmate Sen. John Sparkman, to release their financial information by saying Americans wanted a president who had the “confidence” of all people. Ironically, Stevenson and Sparkman complied, releasing several years of returns while Nixon never followed through with releasing his own. He and Eisenhower went on to win the election.”
Look, it worked for Nixon!
So knowing that this is just some political game they play and have played since NIxon – These “career” politicians use their tax release to the public as a ruse. Of course it will show them charitable, and ensure every thing checks, etc. because it is all for show. Of course, Clinton’s case she they funnel all their evasive and beyond fraudulent dealings through the Clinton Foundation. John Kerry, released his, however oddly Teresa Heinz didn’t release hers. They have been planning on running for office for their entire adult life – transparency is not transparent when you have had years to plan on what those tax returns should look like!
Donald Trump is a businessman, an outsider — therefore his tax returns are that of a normal businessman, not a politician.
Again – NOT REQUIRED HILLARY. Not that she cares about requirements or laws anyway!
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Interesting question… who would have access to Trump’s tax returns from 3 different states?
Mr.L: What is Hillary REALLY Hiding?
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