How Quickly the Trump Tax Return Story Has Disappeared | Eastern North Carolina Now

    During the September 26, 2016 presidential debate, candidate Hillary Clinton hinted that her opponent, Donald Trump, was hiding something by not releasing his taxes. Who can forget her attack: "You've gotta ask yourself, why won't he release his tax returns? And I think there may be a couple of reasons. First, maybe he's not as rich as he says he is. Second, maybe he's not as charitable as he claims to be. Third, we don't know all of his business dealings, but we have been told, through investigative reporting that, he owes about $650 million to Wall Street and foreign banks. Or maybe he doesn't want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he's paid nothing in federal taxes. Because the only years that anybody has ever seen, were a couple of years where he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license. And they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax." Most of us shook our heads at the audacity of the likes of Hillary Clinton, a serial liar, cheat, intimidation expert, and lawbreaker, and known roundly for her lack of ethics, morals, and decency (particularly in a so-called charitable organization, the Clinton Foundation, which turned out to be a sham or front for her own campaign financing)

    When Trump's 2005 tax returns were inappropriately leaked (the smear campaign against Donald Trump already in full swing), Rachel Madcow, and MSNBC, couldn't wait to treat their rabid progressive audience to what they were sure was evidence of a tax-evader. And so, on air, Madcow, filled with the kind of exuberance that only liberals and progressives are capable of - in anticipation of destroying the reputation of a hardworking, patriotic, conservative family man, exposed Trump's tax results.

    The only thing.... Trump's tax returns weren't at all what she (or the left) were expecting. Not only did Trump not escape paying taxes, but he paid a higher rate than the likes of Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama. The Obamas paid an effective tax rate of only 18.7% in 2015. Bernie Sanders paid a federal tax rate of only 13.5% in 2014. Ironically, Comcast, the parent of MSNBC, paid a tax rate of only 24% from 2008 through 2012, less than Trump's 2005 effective rate of roughly 25.3%. Trump paid $38 million in taxes on his income of $150 million.

    Back in 1995, Trump had serious financial issues. We know this because of another "inappropriate" leak of Trump's tax returns. In fact, by the early 1990's, Trump was hemorrhaging money and was on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars. He was heading toward personal bankruptcy as a result of a series of misguided investments and mismanagement of his company in the late 1980's which ended up forcing him to borrow money from his family. Trump suffered a staggering loss of $916 million in 1995 - enough to allow him to take advantage of a tax law which would permit him to avoid paying income taxes for 18 years.

    Perhaps Hillary Clinton and her campaign strategists took a gamble on this information, using it to make the bold accusation that Trump wasn't releasing his tax returns because he wasn't in fact, paying taxes. This, of course, begs the follow-up: She must have been given this information in advance; someone must have leaked information to her and the campaign prior to its release through the news that Trump suffered such devastating losses that surely he was exempt from paying federal income tax. Was that Hillary's "October surprise"?

    Trump's tax information was leaked to the New York Times; it was received by an "anonymous" package in the mail. It then made it to Madcow and to all other news outlets. Those who gleefully exposed it, hoping it would embarrass and harm Trump's legitimacy for the presidency, suffered ridicule and embarrassment themselves. We enjoyed watching them with egg on their faces.


    Indeed, Trump's near-billion-dollar loss in 1995 might have been the single biggest net operating loss in the country that year, amounting to almost 2% of the the total net operating losses reported by all American taxpayers who used the same tax provision as Trump.

    Sure, Donald Trump did not pay federal income tax in 1995, and perhaps even a few years after that. But as the leaked 2005 tax return shows, he chose NOT to take advantage of a tax law that Congress itself put into the IRS code to enjoy relief from taxes for nearly two decades.

    That speaks to the man that is Donald Trump.

    Trump may not be as good a businessman as he claims nor as rich, but he is clearly an honest-enough taxpayer and loyal American who believes that if he has made money in this country, he is obligated to pay taxes and not shift the burden to the middle class to pay the taxes he should. He doesn't have the intuition of a Hillary Clinton to break and skirt the law, nor the audacity of a Bernie Sanders, who paid minimal while being quite rich.

    This story goes to show one thing -- Liberals and Democrats are so happy to go after conservatives and Republicans for character assassination. All too often, as in this case, we find the charges to be baseless or trumped up (couldn't resist!) and in the end, we find that, by comparison, liberals and Democrats are guilty of far worse and have gotten away with it.

    Maybe the American people will begin to take accusations by the left a little less seriously, maybe they will begin to note the glaring hypocrisy, and maybe - just maybe - they will give President Donald Trump a chance to help the American people, as a whole, and to Make America Great Again !!

    References:

    Daniel John Sobieski, "Rogue IRS Felons Vindicate Trump," American Thinker, March 16, 2917. Referenced at: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/03/rogue_irs_felons_vindicate_trump.html

    Abigail Tracy, "Trump's Financial Troubles in the Early 1990's Were Even Worse Than Anyone Thought," Vanity Fair, October 4, 2016. Referenced at: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/10/donald-trump-financial-troubles-taxes-1990s

poll#100

Is the concerted Democrat plan to obfusticate the purpose of government by the unprecedented delaying of President Trump's appointments, while galvanizing with the organized protesters' directive to obstruct the process of governing, at the federal level, working for the Democrat brand?

  Yes, Democrats will finally create a Socialist Progressive utopia if they remain banded together.

  No, the nation is in dire straits, on so many levels, and needs immediate repair.

  I'm busy with my important life, such as it is, and don't care.

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