wjboyer1
03-15-2017, 08:09 PM
By Allison Graves on Monday, January 16th, 2017 at 11:17 a.m.
Donald Trump is the first president in almost 40 years to not release his tax returns, which has people wondering: What’s in them?
Trump promised to release them during his campaign, but he has yet to do so, citing an ongoing audit by the Internal Revenue Service.
“I’m under a routine audit and it'll be released, and as soon as the audit is finished it will be released,” Trump said at the first debate in September.
An audit doesn’t legally stop a person from releasing tax returns, though.
WHY HE'S PROMISING IT
Trump was called on repeatedly to release his tax returns throughout the election.
While not required by law, all but one major party nominee over the last 40 years has released tax returns for the prior year. Republican President Gerald Ford did not release a tax return, either.
Trump’s team argued during the campaign that his release of financial disclosures were most than sufficient, but that isn’t true.
Experts told PolitiFact in 2016 that releasing tax returns would offer valuable details on his tax rate, the types of taxes he paid, and his charitable giving, as well as a better idea of his income-producing assets.
WHAT'S STANDING IN HIS WAY
While Trump has made it seem like they are factors standing in his way, experts have labeled those reasons as excuses and have questioned his lawyers’ rationale.
There is no law that stops a person from releasing tax returns while under audit. Richard Nixon released his tax returns in the middle of an audit a year after being re-elected.
Edward McCaffrey, a tax law professor at the University of Southern California, wrote a column on CNN in August 2016 dissecting Trump’s excuses one by one and ultimately concluded none were valid.
McCaffrey told PolitiFact in November the reason Trump hasn’t released his tax returns comes down to not wanting other people to help the IRS see issues that might cost Trump money.
In March 2016, Trump’s attorneys wrote a letter explaining why they have advised Trump to not release his returns. They cite Trump’s ownership in over 500 companies and said his tax returns are unusually complex, which is why they have been under examination.
Given that being under audit doesn’t stop someone from releasing his returns, Brian Galle, a tax law professor at Georgetown University, questions how “my attorneys told me not to” is an acceptable excuse.
“It is tantamount to saying, in essence, that there is something incriminating that the official does not want uncovered,” Galle said.
Some tax experts and financial reporters suggested that Donald Trump may not have paid any federal income taxes since the nineteen-nineties. Trump’s dogged refusal to release any of his returns contributed to this speculation. So did his state tax returns from 1995, portions of which were sent to the Times. These showed that he had used aggressive accounting tactics, taking a loss that year of more than nine hundred million dollars. Experts suggested that Trump might have exploited this huge write-off in subsequent years, too, greatly reducing or eliminating his tax liabilities.
David Cay Johnston, a former Times tax reporter who published a critical biography of Trump last year received two pages from Trump’s 2005 federal tax return. “It came in the mail, over the transom.
Noteworthy was the fact that most of the tax Trump paid was captured by the Alternative Minimum Tax, which is a backup tax designed to insure that people with a lot of deductions don’t entirely escape taxes. Because Trump took a write-down of more than a hundred million dollars in 2005, his initial tax liability was just $5.3 million. If not for the Alternative Minimum Tax, which he and other Republicans want to get rid of, his effective tax rate would have been about 3.5 per cent. Because he was liable to the A.M.T., he was forced to pay an additional thirty-one or so million dollars.
In a statement released on Tuesday night, the White House confirmed the authenticity of the partial 2005 return. Trump’s return demonstrates why preserving the A.M.T. is essential. More immediately, it also raises the question of who leaked it.
For one thing, the leak didn’t include the bulk of Trump’s tax return or the supporting appendices. These materials would have provided information about any loans he had taken out and details of any income he received from overseas. It is also curious that the return is for 2005, which was a particularly good year for Trump’s business.
As a businessman, Trump was well known for leaking material that cast him in a positive light. The revelation that he paid tens of millions of dollars in federal taxes, for this one year at least, must count as favorable to him. So, too, must the public confirmation that he earned more than a hundred and fifty million dollars.
The return was also leaked just when Trump needed a distraction. During the past couple of weeks, he has had to deal with news stories about his Administration’s ties to Russia. The Republican health-care plan he endorsed has run into a firestorm following the Congressional Budget Office’s assessment that the measure would raise the number of uninsured by twenty-four million over ten years. According to Gallup, his approval rating is just thirty-nine per cent. And on Wednesday, James Comey, the director of the F.B.I., is due to testify on Capitol Hill. CNN reported on Tuesday night that Comey is prepared to confirm publicly, for the first time, the existence of the agency’s investigation into possible contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Finally, a stamp on the second page of the partial return that Johnston received reads “Client Copy.” This appears to indicate that this document wasn’t sent to the Internal Revenue Service but was instead retained by Trump or his accountant.
Donald Trump is the first president in almost 40 years to not release his tax returns, which has people wondering: What’s in them?
Trump promised to release them during his campaign, but he has yet to do so, citing an ongoing audit by the Internal Revenue Service.
“I’m under a routine audit and it'll be released, and as soon as the audit is finished it will be released,” Trump said at the first debate in September.
An audit doesn’t legally stop a person from releasing tax returns, though.
WHY HE'S PROMISING IT
Trump was called on repeatedly to release his tax returns throughout the election.
While not required by law, all but one major party nominee over the last 40 years has released tax returns for the prior year. Republican President Gerald Ford did not release a tax return, either.
Trump’s team argued during the campaign that his release of financial disclosures were most than sufficient, but that isn’t true.
Experts told PolitiFact in 2016 that releasing tax returns would offer valuable details on his tax rate, the types of taxes he paid, and his charitable giving, as well as a better idea of his income-producing assets.
WHAT'S STANDING IN HIS WAY
While Trump has made it seem like they are factors standing in his way, experts have labeled those reasons as excuses and have questioned his lawyers’ rationale.
There is no law that stops a person from releasing tax returns while under audit. Richard Nixon released his tax returns in the middle of an audit a year after being re-elected.
Edward McCaffrey, a tax law professor at the University of Southern California, wrote a column on CNN in August 2016 dissecting Trump’s excuses one by one and ultimately concluded none were valid.
McCaffrey told PolitiFact in November the reason Trump hasn’t released his tax returns comes down to not wanting other people to help the IRS see issues that might cost Trump money.
In March 2016, Trump’s attorneys wrote a letter explaining why they have advised Trump to not release his returns. They cite Trump’s ownership in over 500 companies and said his tax returns are unusually complex, which is why they have been under examination.
Given that being under audit doesn’t stop someone from releasing his returns, Brian Galle, a tax law professor at Georgetown University, questions how “my attorneys told me not to” is an acceptable excuse.
“It is tantamount to saying, in essence, that there is something incriminating that the official does not want uncovered,” Galle said.
Some tax experts and financial reporters suggested that Donald Trump may not have paid any federal income taxes since the nineteen-nineties. Trump’s dogged refusal to release any of his returns contributed to this speculation. So did his state tax returns from 1995, portions of which were sent to the Times. These showed that he had used aggressive accounting tactics, taking a loss that year of more than nine hundred million dollars. Experts suggested that Trump might have exploited this huge write-off in subsequent years, too, greatly reducing or eliminating his tax liabilities.
David Cay Johnston, a former Times tax reporter who published a critical biography of Trump last year received two pages from Trump’s 2005 federal tax return. “It came in the mail, over the transom.
Noteworthy was the fact that most of the tax Trump paid was captured by the Alternative Minimum Tax, which is a backup tax designed to insure that people with a lot of deductions don’t entirely escape taxes. Because Trump took a write-down of more than a hundred million dollars in 2005, his initial tax liability was just $5.3 million. If not for the Alternative Minimum Tax, which he and other Republicans want to get rid of, his effective tax rate would have been about 3.5 per cent. Because he was liable to the A.M.T., he was forced to pay an additional thirty-one or so million dollars.
In a statement released on Tuesday night, the White House confirmed the authenticity of the partial 2005 return. Trump’s return demonstrates why preserving the A.M.T. is essential. More immediately, it also raises the question of who leaked it.
For one thing, the leak didn’t include the bulk of Trump’s tax return or the supporting appendices. These materials would have provided information about any loans he had taken out and details of any income he received from overseas. It is also curious that the return is for 2005, which was a particularly good year for Trump’s business.
As a businessman, Trump was well known for leaking material that cast him in a positive light. The revelation that he paid tens of millions of dollars in federal taxes, for this one year at least, must count as favorable to him. So, too, must the public confirmation that he earned more than a hundred and fifty million dollars.
The return was also leaked just when Trump needed a distraction. During the past couple of weeks, he has had to deal with news stories about his Administration’s ties to Russia. The Republican health-care plan he endorsed has run into a firestorm following the Congressional Budget Office’s assessment that the measure would raise the number of uninsured by twenty-four million over ten years. According to Gallup, his approval rating is just thirty-nine per cent. And on Wednesday, James Comey, the director of the F.B.I., is due to testify on Capitol Hill. CNN reported on Tuesday night that Comey is prepared to confirm publicly, for the first time, the existence of the agency’s investigation into possible contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Finally, a stamp on the second page of the partial return that Johnston received reads “Client Copy.” This appears to indicate that this document wasn’t sent to the Internal Revenue Service but was instead retained by Trump or his accountant.