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Gothmog

(145,151 posts)
Tue Oct 2, 2018, 03:29 PM Oct 2018

Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches From His Father

This article is amazing. Here is some from the article https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-tax-schemes-fred-trump.html

The Times’s findings raise new questions about Mr. Trump’s refusal to release his income tax returns, breaking with decades of practice by past presidents. According to tax experts, it is unlikely that Mr. Trump would be vulnerable to criminal prosecution for helping his parents evade taxes, because the acts happened too long ago and are past the statute of limitations. There is no time limit, however, on civil fines for tax fraud....

What emerges from this body of evidence is a financial biography of the 45th president fundamentally at odds with the story Mr. Trump has sold in his books, his TV shows and his political life. In Mr. Trump’s version of how he got rich, he was the master dealmaker who broke free of his father’s “tiny” outer-borough operation and parlayed a single $1 million loan from his father (“I had to pay him back with interest!”) into a $10 billion empire that would slap the Trump name on hotels, high-rises, casinos, airlines and golf courses the world over. In Mr. Trump’s version, it was always his guts and gumption that overcame setbacks. Fred Trump was simply a cheerleader....

Certainly a handful of journalists and biographers, notably Wayne Barrett, Gwenda Blair, David Cay Johnston and Timothy L. O’Brien, have challenged this story, especially the claim of being worth $10 billion. They described how Mr. Trump piggybacked off his father’s banking connections to gain a foothold in Manhattan real estate. They poked holes in his go-to talking point about the $1 million loan, citing evidence that he actually got $14 million. They told how Fred Trump once helped his son make a bond payment on an Atlantic City casino by buying $3.5 million in casino chips.

But The Times’s investigation of the Trump family’s finances is unprecedented in scope and precision, offering the first comprehensive look at the inherited fortune and tax dodges that guaranteed Donald J. Trump a gilded life. The reporting makes clear that in every era of Mr. Trump’s life, his finances were deeply intertwined with, and dependent on, his father’s wealth.

Trump's fortune is based on tax fraud
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Ohiogal

(31,983 posts)
3. Does this surprise anyone?
Tue Oct 2, 2018, 03:49 PM
Oct 2018

Seriously? It sure doesn't surprise me. Remember when, during one of the debates, he said that "not paying your fair share of taxes makes you smart"?

Yet he will dismiss this research as "character assassination" and his base will applaud it as being a "savvy businessman". Because paying taxes is like in the top three things that Right Wingers hate with a passion, and anyone who can wrangle out of doing it will be elevated to hero status in their minds.

 

libdem4life

(13,877 posts)
4. He didn't do too badly in bankruptcy and screwing employees and creditors either.
Tue Oct 2, 2018, 03:51 PM
Oct 2018

That may have been more lucrative than tax evasion...that and laundering money. So many crimes...too little "give a shits".

Achilleaze

(15,543 posts)
8. Did the republican Draft-Dodger-in-Chief get approval from the Kremlin for his cheating?
Tue Oct 2, 2018, 04:20 PM
Oct 2018

Or did he just do what other republicans do and employ "republican family values" to "justify" his cheating?

Elwood P Dowd

(11,443 posts)
11. He was a brilliant businessman by the age of 4.
Tue Oct 2, 2018, 04:24 PM
Oct 2018

Pulled himself up by his bootstraps and escaped poverty. Had the biggest lemon aid stand in the history of Manhattan.

NightWatcher

(39,343 posts)
13. trump's not a business man, he's a tax dodge with a pulse
Tue Oct 2, 2018, 06:32 PM
Oct 2018

He's one braincell away from being a cardboard box full of money.

moondust

(19,974 posts)
17. Slander I tells ya!
Tue Oct 2, 2018, 08:05 PM
Oct 2018

Will he bring some kind of defamation suit against the "failing" NYT?

My question is why didn't someone look into this fraud 35 years ago when he could have been prosecuted and spare us all these years of bullshit? Rudy? Hello Rudy? You there Rudy?

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