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How Trump lost $ 916 million and avoided Federal Income Tax for 18 years!

Could this be crushing to his campaign?


“If I decide to run for office I will produce my tax returns, absolutely, I would love to do that” – Donald Trump, May 2014.

But until now he never did- anything to hide, Mr. Trump?

Tax experts have noted that the tax rules would allow for Trump to use this $916m loss to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income over an 18-year period.

Income, for example the $45 million he was paid between 1995 and 2009 as chief executive of a publicly traded company that he created to assume ownership and manage the failing Atlantic City casinos, would have not been taxable. All the while ordinary investors witnessed their shares dive to 17 cents from $35.50 and many contractors went unpaid for work, and casino bondholders received pennies on the dollar.

 

Trump has remained silent on the specifics

Trump declined to comment on the documents. Instead, his campaign released a statement that neither disputed nor confirmed the $916 million loss.

“Mr. Trump is a highly-skilled businessman who has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required,” the statement said. “That being said, Mr. Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes.”

The statement continued, “Mr. Trump knows the tax code far better than anyone who has ever run for President and he is the only one that knows how to fix it.”

 

 

Under further scrutiny:

The documents do however provide new insight into the Presidential Candidate’s finances, which has been a subject of intense speculation given his repeated emphasis on his business record thrhoughtout the entirety of his campaign.

 

Will this affect his polling?

The extent to which this might cause Trump problems in the polls could take more time to play out. There is evidence that the majority of voters believe it is important for candidates to release their tax records.

Trump’s appeal in ‘Rust Belt’ swing states has mostly been found in ordinary voters who feel they have been left behind by the uneven economic recovery and who begrudge the wealthy Wall Street types who are able to maneuver the complicated tax scheme to escape the burden that other middle-class voters have to endure.

But it isn’t impossible to think that many of Trump’s core voters harbor a deep suspicion of the federal government and would see his avoidance as ‘smart’, just as Donald himself claimed in the debate.

 

No wrongdoing

Tax experts have declared that Donald Trump has not broken the law in any way, but his tweets would show his supposed moral compass might not be aligned correctly: