Category Archives: IRS
Really Big Big Loser, Everyone Agrees
The NYT got hold of Trump’s tax returns from 1985-94. He lost $1.17 billion.
Big Big Loser
It’s not fake news but it may not really be news at all. In fact Trump bragged about it at the time, and wrote a book. Probably only really lost a billion.
Manafort’s Money
Click on Manafort to enlarge the cartoon.
President Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort was convicted on eight charges of bank and tax fraud. The judge ruled a mistrial on 10 other charges. The conviction isn’t related to Robert Mueller’s collusion investigation.
But maybe it was related to Manafort’s taste for the the finer things in life. He once spent $15,000 on an ostrich jacket. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Except that he lied to banks for loans and didn’t pay taxes on $16 million.
Vox follows Manafort’s money here.
Senate Tax Bill Kills Health Insurance Individual Mandate
The Senate tax bill ends the mandate to buy health insurance. This is a bad thing? It is according to a CNN Money article:
Poor Americans would lose billions of dollars worth of federal benefits under the Senate GOP tax bill, according to a new Congressional Budget Office report.
This is largely because the legislation would eliminate the individual mandate, which requires nearly all Americans to get health insurance or pay a penalty. This would result in 13 million fewer people having coverage in 2027, the CBO found.
Many of the folks who would forgo coverage would have lower or moderate incomes and would have qualified for Medicaid or federal help paying their premiums or out-of-pocket health expenses, CBO found.
If it’s a good deal why do people need to be forced to buy it? Do they think we’re stupid?
Oh.
Trump Income Tax Short Form
Two pages of the 2005 Donald Trump income tax return fell in to the hands of Rachel Maddow last week. On her show she played it for all it was worth. It turns out it was worth about $38 million to Uncle Sam in taxes paid on an income of $150 million. That’s an effective rate of about 25%. The revelation made The Donald look good compared to accusations that he doesn’t pay any income taxes at all.
It also made him look good compared to Barack Obama’s 2015 effective rate of 18.5%, Bernie Sanders 2014 effective rate of 13.5%, and Mitt Romney’s 2011 rate of 14.1%
Even Van Jones called it a good night for Donald Trump.
The purloined returns showed up in the mailbox of journalist David Cay Johnston. He says he knows nothing. Revealing private income tax information is a felony.
Trump denies that he had anything to do with it.
