Donald Trump 2020

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11669]

12 minutes ago, MillerEP said:

https://monsterhunternation.com/2020/09/28/no-you-idiots-thats-not-how-taxes-work-an-accountants-guide-to-why-you-are-a-gullible-moron/

NO, YOU IDIOTS. THAT’S NOT HOW TAXES WORK. – AN ACCOUNTANT’S GUIDE TO WHY YOU ARE A GULLIBLE MORON
SEPTEMBER 28, 2020 CORREIA

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I posted that last night on Facebook, and sure enough, this morning my feed is filled with people who don’t know shit about taxes retweeting the stupid opinions of other morons who also don’t know shit about taxes. This is just as annoying as last week when these same idiots all suddenly became Constitutional Scholars. Or the month before that when they were all experts on use of force laws and police tactics. Or the month before that when they suddenly got their epidemiology degrees from the University of Internet and turned into infectious disease experts.  

Holy shit, you Dunning-Krugerands are annoying. Of course the comments are all about the “morality” of paying your “fair share”. Which isn’t how any of this works in real life. Just stop it with your vapid hot takes already. You clearly have a child-like grasp of a complex topic, and your words are making America dumber.

As a former accountant, please allow me to explain why all of today’s newly formed tax experts are fucking morons, and we should metaphorically put a brick in a sock and beat them over the head with it until they shut up.

I’m going to keep this blog post simple. I’m not going to get into any of the specifics of the leaked Trump taxes. Why? Because:

We don’t know how full of shit the NYT is, and you don’t do taxes based on rumors and innuendo. You do taxes based upon financial statements and the company’s books.
This shit is super complicated and my happy ass is retired and likes getting paid more money to write books instead of reading through thousands of pages of IRS regs.
So big picture time…

First off, “morality” doesn’t have jack shit to do with taxation. You pay what you legally owe. Nobody willingly pays the government more than they legally owe.

This has always been this way since America has had income taxes. There is endless court precedent. You pay what you legally owe. That’s it. If you pay less than you legally owe, then the government will fine or imprison you. If you pay more than you legal owe, the government will laugh and laugh, because you are an idiot, and you deserve to be poor.

Every single person who barks about how somebody else should be paying more? They themselves are paying the minimum they can get away with. As they should. As should you.

I remember when I was taking my first tax class back in college. This class was all accounting majors by this point. At the beginning of the semester the professor (who’d had a long career as a tax guy) gave us an imaginary family as our clients and had us do their taxes. One kid didn’t take advantage of all the obvious deductions for his clients. When the professor asked why, the kid said some mushy thing about how he didn’t think it was FAIR to keep that money from the government… Holy shit. The professor ripped this kid a new asshole. HOW DARE YOU!?! IT IS NOT THE GOVERNMENT’S MONEY! IT IS YOUR CLIENT’S MONEY. YOU OWE THEM YOUR BEST! IT IS YOUR SACRED DUTY TO SAVE THEIR MONEY! YOU DISGUST ME AND YOU SHOULD NEVER BE A CPA!

That class was one of my favorites.

Basically, you pay what you owe, no more, and anyone who claims otherwise is full of shit.

Second, “loopholes” is a term most often used by people who don’t understand accounting or tax law, to complain about how somebody else used the existing laws created by congress to pay less than what that person thinks is “fair.” Regular people have heard the bullshit term loopholes tossed around so much that they start to believe that it is some magical easy button that rich guys can just push that makes it so they don’t have to pay taxes.

Nope. They’re just laws. These “loopholes” exist because at some point in time congress (both democrat and republican both!) decided that they wanted to promote some type of behavior or discourage some other behavior. So they basically put a reward into the law saying if you do this thing we like, you’ll pay less taxes! Or the opposite, congress wanted to discourage some behavior, so if you do that thing we don’t want, it will cost you more.

Both sides have done this forever, state and federal. We want you to drive electric cars so if you buy an electric car you get a tax break this year. YAY! Uh oh, we want you to stimulate the economy by buying this kind of machinery faster, so you have to depreciate your assets this other way or you’ll pay more! BOO! You get a discount for paying your employees health insurance, YAY! Oh, wait… Not that kind of health insurance. BOO!.

So on and so forth, up and down, these perks come and go, all based upon whatever behavior congress is trying to promote at that time (or what favors they are doing for their friends). Why was mortgage interest deductible? Because at one point congress said “we really want people to own houses!” Even regular people have things that are considered “loopholes” to somebody.  

So when the blue check mark journalism major (who probably dropped out of PoliSci because “there’s too much math”) declares that it is immoral that some rich dude didn’t pay his fair share because he used loopholes, those are basically a bunch of meaningless buzz words strung together to prey on the feelings of the gullible.

Joe Biden has been making shit like this up for forty something years now. Congress meddles in business and your personal lives to try to steer outcomes. And as a result the tax law just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and more complicated and confusing, until it is the bloated leviathan we have today.

How big is the US tax code? NOBODY KNOWS! (and I’m only partially kidding with that answer, because there’s thousands of pages of actual laws, and I don’t think anybody can actually pin down how many thousands of pages there are of supporting documentation and IRS regs and findings that translate those broad laws into the nitty-gritty real world application accountants have to deal with).

It is this complexity that makes it hard to figure out what anyone actually owes. The more complicated your affairs, the more of these laws you run into, the more “loopholes” you may be able to take advantage of.

We’ve already determined, nobody willingly pays more than they owe. The real problem is determining what you actually legally owe. And this is where it gets sticky. Because the laws are very complex, the more complicated your finances, the more likely you are to have confusion over your taxes.

Let me give you an example. I can’t remember the exact details because this was over 20 years ago, but when I was getting my accounting degree we learned about this challenge someone did, where they got something like a hundred different tax preparers, ranging from Big 5 (back then)firms, medium size firms, small firms, individual CPAs, TurboTax, H&R Block, the works… to do the taxes of the same hypothetical family of five. This family had a small business, some investments, some rental property, so on and so forth, but nothing super complicated. Then they had the hundred different preparers do their taxes… And they got a hundred different answers of what they owed that year. And each of those answers could be argued as being correct… And yet each of those answers could also be determined as wrong by an IRS auditor.

Sometimes there is confusion about what can or cannot be deducted. Some things are clear. Others are questionable. Some things the IRS has clearly stated are good to go, others you make your best guess, and then hope the auditor doesn’t disagree. There is an old tax preparer saying, pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.

Which brings us to today, with people freaking out about how Trump allegedly didn’t pay taxes for 10 out of 15 years and how that’s UNFAIR. Assuming that the anonymous tip isn’t total bullshit—and this is the New York Times we’re talking about and they love to just make shit up—and that the information is accurate (which means that whoever leaked it committed a felony, but that’s a whole different discussion)… my answer is so?

Is it plausible that a billionaire paid no taxes for a period of several years? Yep. Totally. See all that stuff I wrote above about the complicated tax code and how it is an accountant’s sacred duty to take advantage of all the stupid laws congress has passed to save their client’s money? Pretty much that. It has happened many times before, and it will happen many times again.

One thing that’s really unfair about our tax system is that it is rigged in favor of people who have more resources. Government meddling makes it more costly to conduct business. The more complicated the regulatory burden, the more smaller companies can’t compete. Make the laws complicated enough and the only companies that stay in business are the ones who can afford to pay for twenty guys like me. (my last regular accounting job paid extremely well, and nearly everything I did was jump through government mandated hoops, filling out government mandated paperwork which nobody in the government would probably ever read)

Trump has those resources. I bet he’s got a room full of accountants, and their leader is probably a grizzled old CPA with an eye patch and a raven who sits on his shoulder. The raven also has an eye patch and an accounting degree. This man has wrestled bears, and he’s going to take advantage of every tax break in the US Code for his client, and do so gleefully, knowing that many of those laws were signed by Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

On the other side, you know damned good and well that the IRS has sent their most fearsome auditor against him. This man sold his soul to the devil, and then fined the devil for failing to list that soul as a depreciable asset. When he shows up to audit your company, he appears a flash of fire and brimstone, as a Finnish death metal band plays his theme song. He is an auditor bereft of mercy, compassion, or pity, and beneath his leathery wings serve a legion of IRS goblins, who will crawl into every nook and cranny of the Trump Corporation’s P&L looking for errors, and if a mouse so much as shits a turd large enough to unbalance that ledger, there will be hell to pay.

Is it unfair that rich guys can employ Gandalf level CPAs and take advantage of more complicated tax laws, while regular people use TurboTax? Yep. But in the meantime, as long as those tax laws are there, the rich guys would be utter fools not to take advantage of them.

I recall a similar freak out several years ago when it came out that some giant mega-corp (I think it was GE, but I don’t remember) didn’t pay any taxes due to some Obama green energy tax breaks. Only that time the freak out was coming from the right (who hate Obama) and the Bernie Bros (who hate all business). It’s the same kind of thing though. If the laws are on the books, of course companies (and individuals) are going to take advantage of those laws. THAT IS WHY CONGRESS PUT THEM THERE.

Now, it is perfectly okay to get mad at congress for writing stupid laws and needlessly complicating everything with their endless meddling. But it’s stupid to get mad at the people for obeying the laws that are in place.

If it comes out that Trump broke the law, then it goes back to that soulless abomination from the IRS (which again, I say with all due respect, Mr. Auditor Sir, please don’t hurt me) to hook his ebony talons into the Trump Corp’s meaty flank, to pull it down and feast upon the carcass.

Why yes… During the course of my accounting career I did go through several audits with various government agencies. Why do you ask? 😀  (that said, the IRS auditing the various corporations I worked for was always way nicer than being audited by the DCAA. What a fucking nightmare clusterfuck that organization is. I’ve been through ATF audits and they were way better than the DCAA. Though for pure incompetent malfeasance, the SBA still takes the cake.)

That’s how it works. On one side CPAs, and the other, hellspawn audit demons, and they’ll argue, and battle, and go to court over what is and is not owed to the government, and then the client will pay what is legally owed plus any applicable fines and penalties (and not a dime more). Both sides of this titanic eternal struggle are far smarter than anyone at the New York Times and they have access to the actual financial data, unlike all the blue check mark idiots on Twitter who are whinging on today about their feelings. Barf.

Your feelings don’t mean shit. Same as the rest of us, Trump owes what he owes. And the IRS will determine if that number is accurate or not.

 

 

This is a bad article and you should feel bad posting it.  Hiding behind tough guy flexing is so ingrained in the Right’s positioning even their CPAs write like they’re 14 year olds on Call of Duty. 

[conVINCEd 21469]

1 minute ago, Pig Bellmont said:

That’s not how this works in the US - it’s not like FL is some Ecuador without the ability to arrest and extradite. 

Depends on whether a red person or a blue person is running Florida.

[Foggy Notion 1202]

 

[Biff Tannen 45685]

2 minutes ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

This is a bad article and you should feel bad posting it.  Hiding behind tough guy flexing is so ingrained in the Right’s positioning even their CPAs write like they’re 14 year olds on Call of Duty. 

I don’t know. Monsterhunternation.com screams legit source to me. 

[Mo Horn 8842]

Quote

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump’s main source of income — “The Apprentice” and licensing deals — went into a steep decline starting in 2011, falling, along with the show’s ratings, from $51 million that year to $21 million by 2014, and eventually to less than $3 million in 2018.

Which is where those unsubstantiated theories of secret payments from Russia or the mob come in.

His tax records provide more mundane answers. They reveal that as he was pouring money into the golf resorts, he also pulled money out of other places in ways that suggested an immediate need. In 2012, he borrowed $100 million against his equity in Trump Tower in Manhattan, one of his more valuable properties. A year later, he withdrew $95.8 million from his share of a real estate partnership that owns buildings in New York and California. And in 2014, he sold $98 million in stocks and bonds.

These one-time maneuvers, coupled with the more than $427 million from “The Apprentice” and licensing deals, would probably have provided enough cash to cover his golf course investments. But they cannot be repeated, and in at least one case — the Trump Tower mortgage — they need to be paid back.

In addition, he has huge balances on loans, soon to come due, from Deutsche Bank, including $160 million on his Washington hotel in the Old Post Office building and $148 million on the Doral golf resort. Neither of those businesses is turning a profit.

From the latest NYT article. Big time debt coming due. 

[Biff Tannen 45685]

1 minute ago, Mo Horn said:

From the latest NYT article. Big time debt coming due. 

Yeah but we already knew all this. 

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

I realize that Russia is a convenient boogeyman, but why is there always a connection? I didn't know that Burnett (of Apprentice fame), the former British Army paratrooper was working with Russian officials when he was working on producing 'Destination Mir' and that Putin was involved. It's so far fetched, but why can't it be France or Switzerland for pete's sake.

[bolverk 29672]

3 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

I realize that Russia is a convenient boogeyman, but why is there always a connection? I didn't know that Burnett (of Apprentice fame), the former British Army paratrooper was working with Russian officials when he was working on producing 'Destination Mir' and that Putin was involved. It's so far fetched, but why can't it be France or Switzerland for pete's sake.

That's the crazy thing about it, right? I mean, it's not like other countries don't also have obscenely wealthy assholes. But from Trump and those around him, it's almost always Russia...and a couple of one offs from Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan.

[MidTexHorn 822]

11 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

I realize that Russia is a convenient boogeyman, but why is there always a connection? I didn't know that Burnett (of Apprentice fame), the former British Army paratrooper was working with Russian officials when he was working on producing 'Destination Mir' and that Putin was involved. It's so far fetched, but why can't it be France or Switzerland for pete's sake.

Because the Russian oligarchs/mob (same thing) recognize and know how to exploit an easy Mark when they find him?

[Biff Tannen 45685]

12 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

I realize that Russia is a convenient boogeyman, but why is there always a connection? I didn't know that Burnett (of Apprentice fame), the former British Army paratrooper was working with Russian officials when he was working on producing 'Destination Mir' and that Putin was involved. It's so far fetched, but why can't it be France or Switzerland for pete's sake.

Because it isn’t just an easy boogeyman. These are not smart criminals (trump people, not Putin). The most obvious explanation is the truth. 

[Jiggy-Z 3432]

42 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

What none of the sycophants get is the more strenuously they make the argument that Trump didn’t cheat on his taxes...they run right into demonstrating that he’s a fucking GODAWFUL businessman. You get that kid of swell tax treatment....by having MASSIVE losses. That’s not a win.

Carry a big loss or two for a few years to your advantage? Them’s the breaks, and it’s a smart enough move. Do so for multiple years? You are bad at making money.

Yes....and by this point they have already forgotten  about 4.4 billion in losses 85-95.  That happened. 

[TwiceHorn 31471]

4 hours ago, RomaVicta said:

Trump wasn't actually paying Ivanka. He was funneling the mondey back to himself, I'm sure (no proof) that circulating money through consultants was a way for him to keep it personally. The consultants are money launderers and likely all vulnerable to charges. 

Plus, isn't this scheming enough to be a RICO issue?

I'm not fool enough to get my hopes up, but, at long fucking last, we may be able to shine a light on the roaches nest criminal enterprise that is Trump and the GOP.

I've thought for a long time that only general, collective fear of jail could cause so many in that party to tear the country apart. Their collective ass could end up in jail for years. I think the guys who resigned at the time Ryan did are praying for distance enough to weather the storm.

To stay out of jail, they will do anything. I think there will be blood.

I think you are probably right that it is a plan to a) reduce tax liability b) enrich Ivanka and c) have some funneled back to him.

It's a common tactic to "zero out" the revenue of a business entity with expenses, but it's not common to fabricate those expenses out of whole cloth, as this would appear to be.

But, It's not RICO dammit.

Just because I enjoy popehat and that's a great piece.

Edited September 29, 2020 by TwiceHorn

[Ted Lange 16085]

Man I bet Trump is having second thoughts about slaying those payday lenders now.  

[TwiceHorn 31471]

35 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

I realize that Russia is a convenient boogeyman, but why is there always a connection? I didn't know that Burnett (of Apprentice fame), the former British Army paratrooper was working with Russian officials when he was working on producing 'Destination Mir' and that Putin was involved. It's so far fetched, but why can't it be France or Switzerland for pete's sake.

 

[Tom 2959]

9 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I think you are probably right that it is a plan to a) reduce tax liability b) enrich Ivanka and c) have some funneled back to him.

But, It's not RICO dammit.

Just because I enjoy popehat and that's a great piece.

 

That's pretty good.  The only thing I knew about RICO is that's what was used to take down Boyd Crowder of Harlan, KY a few years back.

[High Plains Drifter 11049]

8 hours ago, 4th&Five said:

i get it.  doesn't it feel good to see it happen to a white guy for once though?

 

When it starts happening to white guys in neighborhoods like is the only way its going to change, maybe

 

[C-Man 27227]

From Fallon tonight:

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13585]

I bet I could haggle him down to 72,000 and Greenland.

[High Plains Drifter 11049]

1 hour ago, MillerEP said:

and this is the New York Times we’re talking about and they love to just make shit up

 

stopped reading right there when the author showed his bias ass. Should have stopped earlier at the all caps.

[Dahobbs 17534]

1 hour ago, MillerEP said:

https://monsterhunternation.com/2020/09/28/no-you-idiots-thats-not-how-taxes-work-an-accountants-guide-to-why-you-are-a-gullible-moron/

NO, YOU IDIOTS. THAT’S NOT HOW TAXES WORK. – AN ACCOUNTANT’S GUIDE TO WHY YOU ARE A GULLIBLE MORON
SEPTEMBER 28, 2020 CORREIA

  Hide contents

 

I posted that last night on Facebook, and sure enough, this morning my feed is filled with people who don’t know shit about taxes retweeting the stupid opinions of other morons who also don’t know shit about taxes. This is just as annoying as last week when these same idiots all suddenly became Constitutional Scholars. Or the month before that when they were all experts on use of force laws and police tactics. Or the month before that when they suddenly got their epidemiology degrees from the University of Internet and turned into infectious disease experts.  

Holy shit, you Dunning-Krugerands are annoying. Of course the comments are all about the “morality” of paying your “fair share”. Which isn’t how any of this works in real life. Just stop it with your vapid hot takes already. You clearly have a child-like grasp of a complex topic, and your words are making America dumber.

As a former accountant, please allow me to explain why all of today’s newly formed tax experts are fucking morons, and we should metaphorically put a brick in a sock and beat them over the head with it until they shut up.

I’m going to keep this blog post simple. I’m not going to get into any of the specifics of the leaked Trump taxes. Why? Because:

We don’t know how full of shit the NYT is, and you don’t do taxes based on rumors and innuendo. You do taxes based upon financial statements and the company’s books.
This shit is super complicated and my happy ass is retired and likes getting paid more money to write books instead of reading through thousands of pages of IRS regs.
So big picture time…

First off, “morality” doesn’t have jack shit to do with taxation. You pay what you legally owe. Nobody willingly pays the government more than they legally owe.

This has always been this way since America has had income taxes. There is endless court precedent. You pay what you legally owe. That’s it. If you pay less than you legally owe, then the government will fine or imprison you. If you pay more than you legal owe, the government will laugh and laugh, because you are an idiot, and you deserve to be poor.

Every single person who barks about how somebody else should be paying more? They themselves are paying the minimum they can get away with. As they should. As should you.

I remember when I was taking my first tax class back in college. This class was all accounting majors by this point. At the beginning of the semester the professor (who’d had a long career as a tax guy) gave us an imaginary family as our clients and had us do their taxes. One kid didn’t take advantage of all the obvious deductions for his clients. When the professor asked why, the kid said some mushy thing about how he didn’t think it was FAIR to keep that money from the government… Holy shit. The professor ripped this kid a new asshole. HOW DARE YOU!?! IT IS NOT THE GOVERNMENT’S MONEY! IT IS YOUR CLIENT’S MONEY. YOU OWE THEM YOUR BEST! IT IS YOUR SACRED DUTY TO SAVE THEIR MONEY! YOU DISGUST ME AND YOU SHOULD NEVER BE A CPA!

That class was one of my favorites.

Basically, you pay what you owe, no more, and anyone who claims otherwise is full of shit.

Second, “loopholes” is a term most often used by people who don’t understand accounting or tax law, to complain about how somebody else used the existing laws created by congress to pay less than what that person thinks is “fair.” Regular people have heard the bullshit term loopholes tossed around so much that they start to believe that it is some magical easy button that rich guys can just push that makes it so they don’t have to pay taxes.

Nope. They’re just laws. These “loopholes” exist because at some point in time congress (both democrat and republican both!) decided that they wanted to promote some type of behavior or discourage some other behavior. So they basically put a reward into the law saying if you do this thing we like, you’ll pay less taxes! Or the opposite, congress wanted to discourage some behavior, so if you do that thing we don’t want, it will cost you more.

Both sides have done this forever, state and federal. We want you to drive electric cars so if you buy an electric car you get a tax break this year. YAY! Uh oh, we want you to stimulate the economy by buying this kind of machinery faster, so you have to depreciate your assets this other way or you’ll pay more! BOO! You get a discount for paying your employees health insurance, YAY! Oh, wait… Not that kind of health insurance. BOO!.

So on and so forth, up and down, these perks come and go, all based upon whatever behavior congress is trying to promote at that time (or what favors they are doing for their friends). Why was mortgage interest deductible? Because at one point congress said “we really want people to own houses!” Even regular people have things that are considered “loopholes” to somebody.  

So when the blue check mark journalism major (who probably dropped out of PoliSci because “there’s too much math”) declares that it is immoral that some rich dude didn’t pay his fair share because he used loopholes, those are basically a bunch of meaningless buzz words strung together to prey on the feelings of the gullible.

Joe Biden has been making shit like this up for forty something years now. Congress meddles in business and your personal lives to try to steer outcomes. And as a result the tax law just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and more complicated and confusing, until it is the bloated leviathan we have today.

How big is the US tax code? NOBODY KNOWS! (and I’m only partially kidding with that answer, because there’s thousands of pages of actual laws, and I don’t think anybody can actually pin down how many thousands of pages there are of supporting documentation and IRS regs and findings that translate those broad laws into the nitty-gritty real world application accountants have to deal with).

It is this complexity that makes it hard to figure out what anyone actually owes. The more complicated your affairs, the more of these laws you run into, the more “loopholes” you may be able to take advantage of.

We’ve already determined, nobody willingly pays more than they owe. The real problem is determining what you actually legally owe. And this is where it gets sticky. Because the laws are very complex, the more complicated your finances, the more likely you are to have confusion over your taxes.

Let me give you an example. I can’t remember the exact details because this was over 20 years ago, but when I was getting my accounting degree we learned about this challenge someone did, where they got something like a hundred different tax preparers, ranging from Big 5 (back then)firms, medium size firms, small firms, individual CPAs, TurboTax, H&R Block, the works… to do the taxes of the same hypothetical family of five. This family had a small business, some investments, some rental property, so on and so forth, but nothing super complicated. Then they had the hundred different preparers do their taxes… And they got a hundred different answers of what they owed that year. And each of those answers could be argued as being correct… And yet each of those answers could also be determined as wrong by an IRS auditor.

Sometimes there is confusion about what can or cannot be deducted. Some things are clear. Others are questionable. Some things the IRS has clearly stated are good to go, others you make your best guess, and then hope the auditor doesn’t disagree. There is an old tax preparer saying, pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.

Which brings us to today, with people freaking out about how Trump allegedly didn’t pay taxes for 10 out of 15 years and how that’s UNFAIR. Assuming that the anonymous tip isn’t total bullshit—and this is the New York Times we’re talking about and they love to just make shit up—and that the information is accurate (which means that whoever leaked it committed a felony, but that’s a whole different discussion)… my answer is so?

Is it plausible that a billionaire paid no taxes for a period of several years? Yep. Totally. See all that stuff I wrote above about the complicated tax code and how it is an accountant’s sacred duty to take advantage of all the stupid laws congress has passed to save their client’s money? Pretty much that. It has happened many times before, and it will happen many times again.

One thing that’s really unfair about our tax system is that it is rigged in favor of people who have more resources. Government meddling makes it more costly to conduct business. The more complicated the regulatory burden, the more smaller companies can’t compete. Make the laws complicated enough and the only companies that stay in business are the ones who can afford to pay for twenty guys like me. (my last regular accounting job paid extremely well, and nearly everything I did was jump through government mandated hoops, filling out government mandated paperwork which nobody in the government would probably ever read)

Trump has those resources. I bet he’s got a room full of accountants, and their leader is probably a grizzled old CPA with an eye patch and a raven who sits on his shoulder. The raven also has an eye patch and an accounting degree. This man has wrestled bears, and he’s going to take advantage of every tax break in the US Code for his client, and do so gleefully, knowing that many of those laws were signed by Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

On the other side, you know damned good and well that the IRS has sent their most fearsome auditor against him. This man sold his soul to the devil, and then fined the devil for failing to list that soul as a depreciable asset. When he shows up to audit your company, he appears a flash of fire and brimstone, as a Finnish death metal band plays his theme song. He is an auditor bereft of mercy, compassion, or pity, and beneath his leathery wings serve a legion of IRS goblins, who will crawl into every nook and cranny of the Trump Corporation’s P&L looking for errors, and if a mouse so much as shits a turd large enough to unbalance that ledger, there will be hell to pay.

Is it unfair that rich guys can employ Gandalf level CPAs and take advantage of more complicated tax laws, while regular people use TurboTax? Yep. But in the meantime, as long as those tax laws are there, the rich guys would be utter fools not to take advantage of them.

I recall a similar freak out several years ago when it came out that some giant mega-corp (I think it was GE, but I don’t remember) didn’t pay any taxes due to some Obama green energy tax breaks. Only that time the freak out was coming from the right (who hate Obama) and the Bernie Bros (who hate all business). It’s the same kind of thing though. If the laws are on the books, of course companies (and individuals) are going to take advantage of those laws. THAT IS WHY CONGRESS PUT THEM THERE.

Now, it is perfectly okay to get mad at congress for writing stupid laws and needlessly complicating everything with their endless meddling. But it’s stupid to get mad at the people for obeying the laws that are in place.

If it comes out that Trump broke the law, then it goes back to that soulless abomination from the IRS (which again, I say with all due respect, Mr. Auditor Sir, please don’t hurt me) to hook his ebony talons into the Trump Corp’s meaty flank, to pull it down and feast upon the carcass.

Why yes… During the course of my accounting career I did go through several audits with various government agencies. Why do you ask? 😀  (that said, the IRS auditing the various corporations I worked for was always way nicer than being audited by the DCAA. What a fucking nightmare clusterfuck that organization is. I’ve been through ATF audits and they were way better than the DCAA. Though for pure incompetent malfeasance, the SBA still takes the cake.)

That’s how it works. On one side CPAs, and the other, hellspawn audit demons, and they’ll argue, and battle, and go to court over what is and is not owed to the government, and then the client will pay what is legally owed plus any applicable fines and penalties (and not a dime more). Both sides of this titanic eternal struggle are far smarter than anyone at the New York Times and they have access to the actual financial data, unlike all the blue check mark idiots on Twitter who are whinging on today about their feelings. Barf.

Your feelings don’t mean shit. Same as the rest of us, Trump owes what he owes. And the IRS will determine if that number is accurate or not.

 

 

I can see why he is a former accountant. You probably shouldn't get your advice from that guy. 

[Born to Run 6569]

"Davinci Code" question---isn't the symbol of a reverse-pyramid also the symbol for feminine vagina?  Works out well since most Trumpers are Pussies.  
Fight me, fucking cowards.

Never understand calling weak men pussies. Pussies can take all kinds of pounding, crank out babies reline themselves monthly etc x100.

Flick me in the nuts and I'm in serious pain. Nutsacks are not so durable at all.

[ChiTownDoc 21154]

4 hours ago, Gil Bang said:

This motherfucker will go down in history as one of the fucks that ruined this country. 

That’s gonna be a big fucking book.  

[Born to Run 6569]

This is a bad article and you should feel bad posting it.  Hiding behind tough guy flexing is so ingrained in the Right’s positioning even their CPAs write like they’re 14 year olds on Call of Duty. 

Yeah that was shit and I gave it a chance because I didn't realize that poster sucks. Garbage.

[ChiTownDoc 21154]

7 hours ago, NAVY said:

I know nothing about money laundering except for being a fan of Netflix’s Ozark, but is it possible Trump was laundering when he claimed to be personally funding his 2016 campaign? Where did that money come from if he’s so in debt? 

You see, to launder money, you need...money.  This asshat has just taken on massive loans from some very seedy people.  Now he owes those people favors.  It’s not complicated.  

Now could he have laundered money for others that invested in any one of his many failed businesses?  Maybe, but the money the dumb motherfucker lost is/was very real.  He’s a buffoon of the highest order.  The tweet about the reverse pyramid scheme is spot on.  Also you can bet your ass the state on NY will be on his ass until he’s dead.  We can take some comfort in that.  

[Born to Run 6569]

Man I bet Trump is having second thoughts about slaying those payday lenders now.  

Bravo sir.

[Burt 4080]

 

5 hours ago, Lobo said:

You can't tell me, even if you're a Trumper, you wouldn't subscribe to a Netflix series about a former U.S. President who had to serve time in a state prison and all the logistics that go along with that.  "Oz" meets "Escape from New York" meets "House of Cards" meets "Caged Heat (My Ivanka fantasy)" meets "All the President's Men" meets "Shawshank Redemption."  I'd watch the shit out of that show.  

I'm not watching anything with that cocksucker in it unless it ends like this....

 

Edited September 29, 2020 by Burt

[Bama Chick 28596]

Never understand calling weak men pussies. Pussies can take all kinds of pounding, crank out babies reline themselves monthly etc x100.

Flick me in the nuts and I'm in serious pain. Nutsacks are not so durable at all.

Dude, I’ve been screaming this for years!

[Superhero 8830]

10 hours ago, hayden_horn said:

i dunno either, but i would guess they know to whom the president owes money

[52-80 19158]

7 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

What none of the sycophants get is the more strenuously they make the argument that Trump didn’t cheat on his taxes...they run right into demonstrating that he’s a fucking GODAWFUL businessman. You get that kid of swell tax treatment....by having MASSIVE losses. That’s not a win.

Carry a big loss or two for a few years to your advantage? Them’s the breaks, and it’s a smart enough move. Do so for multiple years? You are bad at making money.

Who's arguing he's a great businessman?  Who wants to trade their tax liabilities for his losses?

[bolverk 29672]

43 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

Who's arguing he's a great businessman?

Oh, I dunno. Every other mouthbreathing yokel in the trailer park who get confused by a bloviating blowhard brand influencer on teevee with an actual real estate mogul.

Quote

 Who wants to trade their tax liabilities for his losses?

Interesting question. Seeing that my federal income tax liabilities increased once his administration's tax scam was passed a couple of years ago, I might say it's worth it to see his losses drive him and his entire family into the ditch along with the rest of the GOP.

[4th&Five 41552]

Confirmed. 

 

Edited September 29, 2020 by 4th&Five

[52-80 19158]

28 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Oh, I dunno. Every other mouthbreathing yokel in the trailer park who get confused by a bloviating blowhard brand influencer on teevee with an actual real estate mogul.

Interesting question. Seeing that my federal income tax liabilities increased once his administration's tax scam was passed a couple of years ago, I might say it's worth it to see his losses drive him and his entire family into the ditch along with the rest of the GOP.

Personal opinion: taxes in US are too low.  Long term cap gain rate is too discounted.  Cost segregation, accelerated depreciation, perpetual 1031 deferral (eventually wiped out through stepped-up basis recognition), and other real estate tax advantages benefit too few people too much.

 

That said, you also have the moutbreathing yokels comparing their tax to the Pres'.  Hurr durrr I got 1k taken from my last paycheck which is more than he paid in a year hurr durr.  Yeah, you probably dont have hundreds of millions in debt either.

 

The other purported dubious expenses though, like claiming hair styling as a deduction, or funneling money through his family... yeah nail him to the wall.

 

[Francisco 2.0 32393]

31 minutes ago, 4th&Five said:

Confirmed. 

 

 

But see, Rick Gates is fake news.  Hardly knew the guy.  Just a coffee boy, nothing more. Looking to make a buck.  And who are you going to believe?  Some felon, or CNN, or me?

 

 

[bolverk 29672]

 

[Dahobbs 17534]

17 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

That said, you also have the moutbreathing yokels comparing their tax to the Pres'.  Hurr durrr I got 1k taken from my last paycheck which is more than he paid in a year hurr durr.  Yeah, you probably dont have hundreds of millions in debt either.

 

Yeah, how dare people be upset that the self-proclaimed billionaire didn't pay any taxes for 10 fucking years. Go ahead, as a regular person, or even a very successful professional, try getting enough deductions that you pay nothing. Fucking ridiculous that anyone defends this shit. 

Yeah, the law is unfairly biased against those that make money through their labor. That needs to be changed. But, even given that biased, you don't end up in Trump's position without committing fraud.  

[WhatTheBuck 28781]

Pussy also refers to a little kitty. 

[Celery Man 20949]

Pussy, the term for a weak willed effeminate man, comes from the word pusillanimous and I believe predates the slang word for vagina.

[Dahobbs 17534]

Just now, Celery Man said:

Pussy, the term for a weak willed effeminate man, comes from the word pusillanimous and I believe predates the slang word for vagina.

Come on man! Effeminate as pejorative should also be no go . 

[52-80 19158]

21 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Yeah, how dare people be upset that the self-proclaimed billionaire didn't pay any taxes for 10 fucking years. Go ahead, as a regular person, or even a very successful professional, try getting enough deductions that you pay nothing. Fucking ridiculous that anyone defends this shit. 

Yeah, the law is unfairly biased against those that make money through their labor. That needs to be changed. But, even given that biased, you don't end up in Trump's position without committing fraud.  

If you take on a 700k mortgage at 10% you'll offset your 70k income too. 

 

God knows im not defending Trump.  And I said explicitly I dont support the US tax code.  But why fix your crosshair only on the playa instead of the game?

[Celery Man 20949]

Come on man! Effeminate as pejorative should also be no go . 

I think it is part of the definition. Not trying to weigh in one way or the other on if it is a good word.

[Dahobbs 17534]

Just now, 52-80 said:

If you take on a 700k mortgage at 10% you'll offset your 70k income too. 

 

God knows im not defending Trump.  And I said explicitly I dont support the US tax code.  But why fix your crosshair only on the playa instead of the game?

When did I do that? I said the law is unfair. I also said that, even given the unfairness, you don't pay 0 in taxes for 10 years as a billionaire without violating the law. 

[Dahobbs 17534]

Just now, Celery Man said:

 

I think it is part of the definition. Not trying to weigh in one way or the other on if it is a good word.

 

I was mostly joking. I just thought there was a bit of irony in your usage of effeminate while suggesting that pussy wasn't that bad because it didn't actually refer to female genitalia. 

[52-80 19158]

2 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

When did I do that? I said the law is unfair. I also said that, even given the unfairness, you don't pay 0 in taxes for 10 years as a billionaire without violating the law. 

These are the yokels you mention who dont interpret his taxes on the basis on the law, but purely on the basis of "ermahgerd i paid more".  Any tax laws he violated should be subject to appropriate prosecution - no excuses

[Celery Man 20949]

Yeah I think “effeminate” snuck in there for me as part of the colloquial understanding/usage of the word. Refers to small timid animals.

[Guest Lobo]

Point taken about the Milwaukee tools-like durability of the vagina.  But "Pussy" is woefully more insulting to Trumpers, okay?  

Nikki Glaser whose comedy is not funny to me had a great point on her show.  She was about to do standup on some late night show and they told her that she couldn't say "Pussy" when referring to her own vagina (she has some bit about "my pussy needed servicing that night so it could tough out the next dry spell").  But she can say "Pussy" when referring to someone being a whimp or cowardly or whatever.  So she changed her bit up and they literally bleeped the "pussy" reference to her own sex organs but kept the other one, and it sounded like this on the air, "So I went home with this guy because my ***** was being a pussy about our dry spell."  I thought it was actually clever. 

Back to Trump---------what's that shithead up to this morning?  I know I prepare for debates while watching morning talk shows and tweeting maniacally.  

As much as we'd all like to hope otherwise, I bet that guy sleeps like a fucking baby.  I'm jealous.  

[Neonmoon 38129]

10 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

If you take on a 700k mortgage at 10% you'll offset your 70k income too. 

 

God knows im not defending Trump.  And I said explicitly I dont support the US tax code.  But why fix your crosshair only on the playa instead of the game?

You see, while I see the merits of your “don’t hate the playa, hate the game” argument”

It is a flawed argument. The game is large and full of many playas. It is hard to change. But if a playa comes along that decides to shine a big fat light on himself, and in doing so, exposes a huge flaw in the game itself for everyone to see, even the tiny playas who don’t even know they’re in the game, then the other playas got to attack that playa to expose the game. 
 

you feel me?

[sasquatch69 603]

7 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

The game is large and full of many playas.

 

[Bookman 4639]

Pussy talk not going away.

[52-80 19158]

13 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

You see, while I see the merits of your “don’t hate the playa, hate the game” argument”

It is a flawed argument. The game is large and full of many playas. It is hard to change. But if a playa comes along that decides to shine a big fat light on himself, and in doing so, exposes a huge flaw in the game itself for everyone to see, even the tiny playas who don’t even know they’re in the game, then the other playas got to attack that playa to expose the game. 
 

you feel me?

 

[52-80 19158]

i find it hilarious that , probably , trump was MORE embarassed about exposing the fact that he's heavily indebted, than the fact that he paid out little taxes.