Once again the New York Times attempts to make an issue out of President Trump’s real estate holdings working as a tax shelter and reducing income taxes.
In the article the Times completely obfuscates the way income taxes are strategically offset by depreciation, mortgage interest and the entire reason why real estate ownership is viewed as a business.
John Carney writing for Breitbart gets it:
[…] So imagine our guy took out an $8 million mortgage at five percent, paying $2 million cash. Now he’s got to pay $400,000 in mortgage payments. He wants to make at least that much so he charges tenants an aggregate of $425,000, which after upkeep comes out to $410,000 of net income. (Remember, if the bank didn’t think he could make more in rent than the mortgage payment, it probably wouldn’t have lent him the money.) The interest payment on the loan–let’s call it $390,000–is deductible from his income, leaving him with $20,000 in net income. He gets to keep that and pay no taxes on it, however, because he still gets to apply the $370,000 depreciation charge. He tells the IRS he lost $350,000.
Under our tax code, ordinary business expenses can be deducted in the year they are incurred. But when a business pays for a long-lasting item expected to produce income–like machinery, vehicles, or an apartment building–it is considered a capital investment. Instead of getting to write-off the cost all at once, the business is required to write it off over the course of decades. After the 1986 tax code, this was set at 27.5 years for residential real estate. (more)
Anyone who has ever operated a business knows that offsetting income is one of the primary reasons to be self-employed. Additionally, the Times completely skips over the tens-of-millions in payroll taxes paid by the Trump organization and tens-of-millions in property and sales taxes paid by all of the various Trump properties.
In the commercial real estate market it is common sense to offset income tax liabilities with a host of valid annual expenses, long-term capital depreciation and mortgage interest payments. With over 500 individual business entities within the Trump organization the ability to offset income in one asset with expenses in another is simply good accounting.
Additionally, President Trump donates his $400,000 government salary back to the U.S. government. So to accuse President Trump of only paying $750 in income taxes totally ignores all of the other donations and tax payments he makes.
In practical terms no President before Trump has ever had his actual business portfolio so deeply connected to the success of the American economy. It doesn’t cost the American taxpayer a dime to have President Trump in office…. Now let’s figure out how DC politicians making $200k/yr are able to become multi-millionaires while holding office.
Anyone?
Who cares? Compared to the obvious and highly publicized crimes of the Biden Family in Ukraine Russia and China, how is that even relevant to this presidential election?
It’s meant to distract the typical low-information Biden voter by accusing President Trump of doing something wrong. Next week I’m sure they have another “bombshell” after this one runs it’s week of mileage.
And meanwhile…Joe Biden is pitied and supported as a victim for being “picked on” by mean nasty President Trump and his supporters. The MO when you have zero alternatives for actually running a viable candidate.
Perspective:
Trump and his company have paid yuuuuge property taxes on their Manhattan real estate.
And paid huge property taxes on all their real estate holdings everywhere.
Trump businesses remit yuuuge sales tax collections to local, county, state governments.
The jobs Trump created all paid income taxes.
Let’s drop the myth of not paying taxes.
Worse than a myth. It’s an outright LIE. Call liars ‘liars’.
PT should separate himself personally from the Trump Organization, taxes.
Trump also WAIVED his presidential salary of $400k per year. Maybe that’s not a lot of money to to geniuses at the NYT but it is to most of us. He did that because he is a reformer and told us he was going to *drain the swamp*. He may not have succeeded but he has shed light on the corruption and nepotism within the federal bureaucracy and of course exposed that top officials in the FBI and DOJ are common criminals.
It also doesn’t mention that the depreciation gets “clawed back” when you sell the property, if it is sold for a profit. It’s not a completely free ride. With the IRS it’s pay me now or pay me later. But you will pay. As far as valuation, everyone, even if you only own a dog house, tries to value the property as low as possible for real estate tax purposes. But when you sell, everyone tries to sell as high as possible. If you are a supposed reporter, you always try to make every statement about Donald Trump as negative as possible, but when speaking of Joe Biden, it’s just a chuckle and Good Ole Joe. Same kind of thing as a developer, only less honest.
Unlike Biden who has no ‘business’ and everything he does is individually personal, tax wise, the Trump Org is in NY and being run by his sons. All the corporate tax laws don’t apply to Trump the individual.
I font know if the taxes are clawed back, 1031 exchanges cut thst issue out.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/09/interesting-joe-biden-campaign-ad-stickers-printed-ready-go-immediately-ny-times-broke-trump-tax-story/ so looks like maybe this tax story got leaked to the dems days ago.so financial records is not one of the debate topics “subject to possible news developments”.anybody want to take bets wallass will change one of the subjects to taxes???
Why isn’t PT separating himself personally from the Trump Organization?
PT ran for the Presidency, not the Trump Organization [business]. PT works in D.C. for US.
PT, as a individual, made $400k as president each year and donated it back to the government, so he had zero income and therefore zero taxes.
He paid an additional $750. If this is truly the left’s understanding of taxes, they all need to be audited.
More reason, if valid, to reject Biden. Afterall, he was part of the government that created the rules we were taxed under. Trump just paid what Biden agreed was due..
Where are 10 years of Biden’s taxes?
For that matter, if it’s now fair game to publish a politician’s tax return, how about Nancy Pelosi’s, Maxine Waters, Adam Schifty, Oh what a long list I can imagine. John Brennan, Don Lemon, the editors of the NY Times. Be still my heart!
The sum total of Joe Biden’s career: 50+ years of being supported by the tax-payers as he sat in the Senate and various public offices and passed the laws that enabled President Trump to prosper legally from the tax-system.
(And how many politicians come into public office penniless -Obamas; Clintons; AOC- and leave mega-rich?)
Just like the Harry Reid’s “nuclear option”, the Democrats don’t like it when it benefits all Americans.
No misreading required. They are propagandists.
To clarify, when Trump sells a property, he will likely be paying a chunk of taxes as his cost basis in that property is reduced by all the depreciation he has already claimed, which gives him a bigger profit. That is the pay now or pay later.
Or do a 1031 exchange and roll the gains into the new like kind property tax free. These laws exist as in incentive to improve land and buildings- you know “progress” the thing Progressives hate.
I for one am impressed that he uses existing law available to any of us to improve his net take home pay. That’s called American ingenuity. We should all take a lesson from his example and legally starve the beast.
Excellent tweet on this topic.
This is what it boils down to… paying estimated taxes, and then figuring out what remains after all of the complicated stuff. I do my own taxes,, but I am not an expert, but even I can see what went on.
Nothing to see here folks… pure fake news!!!
And how much is the gubt now getting paid for the long-term lease of that once rotting virtually empty historic building?
Would Barr’s DOJ like to get involved here? The releasing of an American’s tax info is a FELONY. Hello????? Anyone???? It would be nice if our Justice Department would like to prosecute FELONIES that are in plain sight….like wiping a govt issued phone or a govt issued email account…you know, like with a hammer. For the love of all that is holy.
And depreciation reduces the cost basis when the asset is sold. The taxes are delayed. I sold a commercial building where my cost basis was NEGATIVE $150K. I owed long term capital gains on the sales price PLUS $150K. The tax man will get his money.
No offense Sundance, but I’d rather have AOC explain all of this math stuff to us.
TwoLaine, you made me laugh but I do agree, OMG so much fun.
Levity! I was going to add some of her make math great again lessons, but work got in my way. 😉
P.S. Everyone feel free to add your faves. One of mine is how she explained away her fabulous work on killing the Amazon deal for NYC. Think how those jobs might have helped NYC in the time of Chinese Virus.
TwoLaine…How bout when she bought a TV and on the back said “Made in USA”. She exclaimed “Where in the heck is Usa? LOL
I had not heard that one. So she is great at geography too. Dang, what a resume!
Cortez is not old enough to have purchased a TV that was Made in the USA.
My wife likes to watch AOC every chance she gets…. she enjoys the “challenge” and likes laughing at her. Well, I think she’s overdoing it. Because earlier today we were talking about something, and how we’d need to divide it up so it would last a whole month. It involved 120, so we couldn’t go crazy on any single day. She asked me how many a day that came out to, and I just looked at her like, are you kidding? So I said “What’s 120 divided by 30?” I could see her brain spinning, and I thought she WAS kidding. But then it was obvious she was having a brain freeze, so I simplified and asked “Okay, what’s 12 divided by 3?” That one she got… “Alright, so 4 a day, okay.”
And yes, I most definitely told her she needs to lighten up on watching Occasional Cortex! 😀
I stopped watching FNC last March, so I don’t see her stupidity very often. HOwever, looking up some of her videos today I saw she is urging Bill DiBlasio & Cuomo to up taxes in the name of “education”.
No thanks NY! I think you pi$$ed away enough $$$$ on idiots like AOC already.
TRULY, this is THE OPPORTUNITY OF THE CENTURY, to rethink American education and take it back from the Unions and the deviants.
CORE classes should be online and should be standardized across the nation. No checking required, it is all built in. You don’t need a teacher, you will have many teachers, except you will not move. They will all come to you online, standardized across the country.
Imagine the cost savings alone, AND we take back the content and our country!
Now here’s a guy who knows his math.
AOC’s Amazon math fiasco.
https://youtu.be/z7LLAILaqYI“>
Q What is the probability in a large and extremely complicated calculation of tax liability that the tax liability would be $750 for two years in a row?
A Zero
Did you see the compilation of local news clips that is going around about how at least a dozen cities had increases of 33 cases, 33 total or some such adaptation of the number 33?
Maybe the New York Times could do an article on how the New York Times gets away with paying no taxes.
https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2016/10/02/new-york-times-paid-no-taxes-2014/
“Outlining” seems to be the big new headline buzzword here, but I do not think it means what you seem to think it means.
If the alleged tax returns are true, which I doubt because of the veracity of the source, then this is a magnificent accounting and management achievement . His tax payments approached the speed of sound without breaking the barrier. God speed and God bless.
The same democrats in DC complaining about Trump’s taxes are the same ones that wrote the tax laws. It isn’t just the president that pays minimal taxes, it’s every major business/owner. Hell, I try my best to reduce my taxes but I don’t donate enough to those politicians to earn a tax law for my benefit.
The public is already distrustful about the media, fake news, and hit pieces especially after the Russia hoax.
This will backfire bigly.
Trump will let it fester for a few days, use the debate to bring attention to the media-dnc collusion to interfere in our elections, and tell the public to be on the lookout for his tax attorneys to expose the lie….
And they will.
Exactly what I was wondering about. Trump surely has a whole army of accountants, and you gotta assume THEY do the vast majority of the calculations and digging into write-offs, deductions, depreciation, and tons of other “technical” stuff. So if there were any issues there, it wouldn’t just be Trump himself facing potential legal consequences… there’d be a bunch of accountants and lawyers going down with him. And yet not even a hint of any of this from the NYTimes? Hmm… yeah… this is one of the lamest, least effective “October Surprises” of all time. 😉
I’m so sick of crooked/corrupt Joe Biden reading his Teleprompter in his FAKE NEWS ads. The PHONY can’t say anything unless there is a Teleprompter, so how can he be a President??? It’s UNBELIEVABLE! This phony Socialist does NOTHING but lies on his ads. Joe Biden is getting Billions of dollars from Democrat Billionaires to spread these LIES, because the Democrat Billionaires know Joe Biden has nothing to show for being a politician for 47 years. Vote for President Donald J. Trump November 3, 2020 and keep our country free from Socialism and safe from Riots and getting back to work.
The democrats know this, but figure that the average American is to stupid to understand. Funny thing is wouldn’t it be fun to look at THEIR taxes! Wanna bet how much fraud is taking place there? They all go in reasonably well off (or not) but come out years later as multi millionaires or better! All on a government salary? How about insider trading – BIG TIME! Illegal but they are all up to their necks in it and the democrats are probably the worst of the bunch.
“[T]he Times completely obfuscates the way income taxes are strategically offset by depreciation, mortgage interest and the entire reason why real estate ownership is viewed as a business.”
They do it on purpose — its the only explanation because I got the impression from the Trump Co. lawyer that he had spoken with the NYT reporters and challenged the story before publication (or maybe immediately after it was published). It’s why I don’t read the NYT anymore. It is utterly unremarkable for business filers to depreciate assets and create deduction from income. I ran a businesse and my accounted helped me depreciate office furniture, computers, photocopier, etc. Not a huge savings but worth the extra work.
The NYT probably has some narrow argument supporting their claims but who cares anymore. I have to remind myself that we are in the new era of ‘journalism’ that Ben Rhodes described so perfectly in his famous interview with the NYT
This has nothing to do with President Trump, it has to do with the survival of the USA. If the NY Times can get the tax filings of the most powerful man in the world, none of us has any privacy or protectjon from intrusion into our privacy. What about our medical records? Will the NYTimes publish the president’s colonoscopy? Somebody leaked this. She or he should be found. There cannot be that many people who have access to this info. Find him or her
Every American knows the IRS would love to catch Trump “breaking the law”.
They perpetually audit him. They find nothing wrong.
Not paying what you don’t owe is not a crime. It’s smart.
DJT is very smart about taxes (and a lot of other things, too).
If I didn’t owe tens of thousands of dollars, I wouldn’t pay it either.
Trump didn’t write the tax code. He just studied it and uses it to save his money.
“In practical terms no President before Trump has ever had his actual business portfolio so deeply connected to the success of the American economy. It doesn’t cost the American taxpayer a dime to have President Trump in office…. Now let’s figure out how DC politicians making $200k/yr are able to become multi-millionaires while holding office.”
And that is the point right?
Jenny Hatch