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The story of Donald Trump’s taxes, released by the NY Times, tells a pretty straightforward story: The man is a cheat, a fraud, a failed businessman whose lawyers went to great lengths to manipulate the tax code, both legally and illegally, so Donald could avoid paying his fair share of taxes.
Some of the headlines: For each of the years 2016 and 2017, the man paid a grand total of 750 bucks in federal taxes. Of course, that was more than he paid for 11 of the 18 years between 2000 and 2017 when his tax bill came to zero, zip, nada. But all that withers next to the 73 million dollar refund he received a decade ago.
But with the Donald there’s always that extra little twist, that extra bit of chutzpah that tells us just what kind of upstanding citizen our friendly super-manipulator is: Who else could possibly claim a deduction of $70,000 for hair styling, to cover the man’s bald spot, while he was on the The Apprentice.
But let’s take a step back. Four years ago all the candidates released copies of their taxes, as has become tradition for all presidential aspirants in the modern era. Well, all except one. Donald Trump claimed that his were being audited, and that he would not release them while this was happening. At the time, we had not yet come to appreciate the depth of misrepresentation and deceit this man was capable of. Still, the smart money said that he would never voluntarily release his returns.
I assumed in 2016 that it was only a matter of time, weeks or months perhaps, till someone found a way, legally or illegally, to require his taxes be released or to hack the system and disclose the returns. Legally, we’ve been to the Supreme Court and back, but we are still waiting. But somehow the Times has gotten hold of 20 years of Trump’s highly guarded financial documents.
Rumor has it that perhaps someone in the inner circle had finally had enough. We’re pretty sure that this is only the beginning of the story, and that many other details will come out in the next days and weeks, but I’ve already sent in a donation to erect a statue of this great man or woman. (Maybe it was a friend of Merrick Garland?)
So far, billionaire Donald, whose current and future finances have been revealed to be in pretty dire straits, has had a hard time coming up with a response. Four years ago, he said that it must show he’s pretty smart to avoid paying taxes when other poor suckers were stuck paying theirs. That might have worked when he was running against Hillary, but it’s hard to believe that this is an excuse that he will dare to offer up again. A really sad effort, an off the cuff remark made by this man of brilliance and wit when first asked about the Times tax report, was that he paid a lot in New York State taxes. Let’s see how far that one flies.
But why try something new when that old reliable, fake news, has been the man’s best friend for so long. It’s untrue, it’s false, don’t believe a word of it. I’m the victim in all this. They are plotting against me. Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Hey Don, if this report is false, you’ve got the easiest way in the world to prove NY Times to be failing and fraudulent. Release your taxes, put them side by side with the documents the Times has, and prove to the world you are the truth-teller, you are the savior, you are the one man the world can trust.
Teflon Don, they’ve called him. We’ve been through the Access Hollywood tapes, the Mueller Report, and the impeachment, and the accusations just seem to slide off his back. Could this latest revelation be just one too many, is this the straw that finally breaks the camel’s back?
I’m not certain, but I sure hope so.
my sentiments exactly