Sunday, October 2, 2016

NYT Obtains Trump's 1995 Tax Records, Might Have Legally Avoided Paying The IRS For Almost 20 Years

Well, it dropped. The first of possibly many October surprises this cycle. Wikileaks’ Julian Assange has already offered teasers about new information he’s obtained about Hillary Clinton that has yet to be released. For now, it’s brief glimpse into Donald Trump’s tax returns that The New York Times says could've legally allowed the billionaire to avoid paying taxes for almost two decades. It’s a 1995 return that the news publication obtained, which showed that Trump had lost almost a billion dollars. The Times contacted a lawyer and accountant to Trump, who said that the return was “legit,” while also detailing that the massive losses were probably associated with his casino interests that were bleeding cash in the 1990s. Again, there’s nothing illegal in these documents:
Donald J. Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years, records obtained by The New York Times show. The 1995 tax records, never before disclosed, reveal the extraordinary tax benefits that Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, derived from the financial wreckage he left behind in the early 1990s through mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos, his ill-fated foray into the airline business and his ill-timed purchase of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.
[…]
The tax experts consulted by The Times said nothing in the 1995 documents suggested any wrongdoing by Mr. Trump, even if the extraordinary size of the loss he declared would have probably attracted extra scrutiny from I.R.S. examiners.
[…]
On Wednesday, The Times presented the tax documents to Jack Mitnick, a lawyer and certified public accountant who handled Mr. Trump’s tax matters for more than 30 years, until 1996. Mr. Mitnick was listed as the preparer on the New Jersey tax form.
Mr. Mitnick, 80, now semiretired and living in Florida, said that while he no longer had access to Mr. Trump’s original returns, the documents appeared to be authentic copies of portions of Mr. Trump’s 1995 tax returns. Mr. Mitnick said the signature on the tax preparer line of the New Jersey tax form was his, and he readily explained an obvious anomaly in the way especially large numbers appeared on the New York tax document.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2016/10/02/trump-taxes-n2226643/print 

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