The US House Ways and Means Committee on Friday released six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns.
Experts will look closely at Trump’s reported large business losses that have significantly reduced his tax liability. For example, he paid no federal taxes in 2020.
“Trump paid tiny income taxes in 2015-20, and almost no income taxes in the previous three decades,” Steve Rosenthal, senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center in Washington, said in an email.
“We also learned that in the 1990s and 2000s, Trump claimed business losses in the tens and sometimes hundreds of millions a year. I studied them a few years ago and found some real ones and some fake ones,” he added.
“It’s still too early to tell how real or fake Trump’s most recent losses were,” Rosenthal said.
Read: Trump didn’t pay any taxes in 2020. He’s not alone
Analysts will also dig into the documents for full details of Trump’s foreign trade dealings.
Some accountants who have reviewed the documents say the statements show the US tax system was written to “encourage” real estate investment.
Conclusion: To generate this kind of losses, you must be super rich. It’s not a pauper’s game,” said Jonathan Medows, Managing Member of Medows CPA PLLC in New York.
Read: CPAs have questions about Trump’s tax returns
David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and longtime Trump critic, in an article on his nonprofit DC Report news agency, called the former president’s tax returns “a rich environment in which questionable conduct is found throughout the depots and needs only to be experienced”. auditors to discover fictitious expenses.
He said Trump was warned by two New York state judges during trials over his 1984 taxes not to deduct huge expenses in businesses with no income.
“The fact that Trump has persisted in using the same fraudulent technique over the past six years of tax filings is powerful evidence of criminal intent,” Johnston wrote.
In a statement, Trump said his statements showed “how I was able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive to create thousands of jobs.”
Key words: Trump on releasing his tax returns
Some experts said they would review the returns for details on Trump’s foreign sources of income. The documents show that Trump had foreign bank accounts while he was president.
See: What can we learn from Trump’s tax returns
Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee said they voted to release Trump’s tax returns to help improve tax laws. Republicans warned that the release would set a precedent where political parties routinely release their opponents’ tax returns.
Another question is why the Internal Revenue Service has not audited Trump’s tax returns as it routinely does for US presidents.
See: Trump taxes could reignite fight against IRS funding
On January 3, Republicans will take control of the House with the tax drafting committee.
Representative Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, said Trump’s tax returns “underscore the fact that our tax laws are often unfair and their application is often unfair.”
Rep. Kevin Brady, the Texas Republican who was the Ways and Means Panel’s Minority Leader and is leaving Congress in January, said Democrats have not released Trump’s tax filings for legislative purposes, but wanted to “unleash a dangerous new political weapon”. to the former president.
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Trump’s tax returns now public after long battle with Congress – CNET – ApparelGeek