Then-President Obama meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office, November 10, 2016. Photo credit: Pete Souza / White House
Business owners often legally exploit the U.S. tax code’s treatment of chronic business losses in order to reduce their tax burden.
After conducting a full-scale investigation of Donald Trump’s tax returns, the NYT investigative team has failed to uncover anything illegal or clearly wrong. Except in one case, we have to assume the IRS signed off on Trump’s returns. The exception was a dispute in which Mr. Trump claimed a $72.9 million deduction. This is a fight rich people have with the IRS all the time, often ending in Tax Court, the WSJ points out.
The subtext of this story is the media’s frustration at the skill of Donald Trump’s accountants in tempering the president’s fiscal burden, adds Freddy Gray in Spectator. US.
The reporters seem particularly pained to note that a law passed under President Barack Obama enabled Trump to recoup more historic losses than he could otherwise have done.
As a result, the paper is reduced to mocking Trump where they think it hurts him most — by pointing out that he’s not as rich or as ‘smart’ as he says he is. Most of his business empire runs at a loss — ha ha! That line of attack gives satisfaction to media people who now hate Trump for a living. But do voters really care?
The Trump tax saga is really just another example of the way in which the anti-Trump media defeats itself. If let’s say the New York Times and other organs had never mentioned Trump’s tax returns; or had not run earlier ‘bombshell’ weekend stories about his tax filings that promised a lot more than they delivered — then a big Trump story might now make more waves.
As it is Trump can just call it ‘fake news’ and the cycle moves on. Maybe Joe Biden will stumble onto a zinger line on Tuesday about Trump either being a hopeless businessman or a crook or probably both. Otherwise, the story will just fade away.
