Althouse: I'm not interested in Trump's tax returns because I don't trust anyone to understand and explain them accurately.

May 8, 2019

I'm not interested in Trump's tax returns because I don't trust anyone to understand and explain them accurately.

I don't have the expertise (or time) to do this work myself, and I don't think anyone who is doing it will play it straight. And that's Trump's reason for not releasing them, isn't it?

ADDED: "New York Times story on Trump's billion-dollar tax write off was told by Trump 15 years ago on 'The Apprentice'":

Yes, and I remember this story from back in the early 90s. I remember thinking, good, we won't have to hear from that incredibly annoying creature of the 80s anymore.

228 comments:

«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 228 of 228

Quaestor said...: On second thought, that would be boring and tedious.

When posting boring and tedious remarks ever stop Ritmo from howling at the cruel fates that made him so boring, tedious, jealous, and incompetent?; 5/8/19, 10:09 PM
Birkel said...: Interview question: Can you get unemployment to 50 year lows, keep inflation low while GDP grows at more than 3% per year, and reduce taxes and regulations?

Two years after demonstrating that those answers are yes, we finally get to the important issues of 25 year old tax returns that were illegally leaked.

Who is running this clown show? And why are they playing stupid games in hopes of winning not-stupid prizes?; 5/8/19, 10:12 PM
Birkel said...: I legitimately cannot understand how or why Democratics think any of this benefits them politically.
Normal people will not care about these trivialities.

ASIDE:
readering pretends to be an attorney with first-hand knowledge of Trump's legal situation and also thinks everybody posting online is a dog. Appeals to alleged authority (itself) while admitting the internet is full of liars (also itself) is another strategy I cannot fathom working. The dog barks and the caravan moves on.; 5/8/19, 10:16 PM
walter said...: The issue here is that the MSM is so invested in this shiite that no adjustment to facts as developed is permitted in the $$$ calc.
Better to recycle 2016 "revelations" than abandon a failed path.; 5/8/19, 10:41 PM
readering said...: Some come to post about Trump taxes, some come to post about Trump critics. Hey, some come to post about me. I am truly humbled.; 5/8/19, 10:46 PM
walter said...: You are awesome..in the severe abstract.; 5/8/19, 10:54 PM
walter said...: Potentially more when you lay out your "middle class" benefit/retirement package.; 5/8/19, 10:56 PM
elkh1 said...: The annoying creature is our president because the other creature was more annoying.; 5/8/19, 11:00 PM
effinayright said...: Trump International Crime Syndicate said...
"I'm not interested in Trump's tax returns because I don't trust anyone to understand and explain them accurately."

Ha ha ha! What a ludicrous assertion.

Someone will understand and explain them accurately. You just don't trust yourself to figure out whom.
*************

Dickweed: has it occurred to you that this "someone" very well might be able to explain them accurately to himself ---but not in a clear and unbiased fashion to the general populace.

Others may offer their own analyses themselves.

The question then arises: who do you trust?

That's Althouse's point.

(And it's who, not whom.); 5/8/19, 11:06 PM
readering said...: Bob Woodward being interviewed:

'He then said the more resonating thing [than the fight over the Mueller report] was actually the New York Times’ report on Trump’s taxes. “Here we have Trump not paying taxes for years . . . . And losing $1 billion, this man, who presented himself as so successful. And then Trump’s response is, well, I was in the real estate business, so avoiding taxes is sport. And somebody’s going to look at that who’s been paying thousands of dollars in taxes, who’s this worker, the traditional base for Trump and I think they’re going to be uncomfortable. I think they’re going to say, hey, wait a minute, what’s going on here?”'; 5/8/19, 11:42 PM
walter said...: TICS should be held to PPPT until he explicitly abandons that moniker.; 5/8/19, 11:44 PM
walter said...: "And somebody’s going to look at that who’s been paying thousands of dollars in taxes, who’s this worker, the traditional base for Trump and I think they’re going to be uncomfortable. I think they’re going to say, hey, wait a minute, what’s going on here?”'"
Bob bringing big brain to the discussion...; 5/8/19, 11:46 PM
walter said...: readering:
"he website tried to negotiate an inadequate level of security.

www.mediaite.com uses security technology that is outdated and vulnerable to attack. An attacker could easily reveal information which you thought to be safe. The website administrator will need to fix the server first before you can visit the site.

Error code: NS_ERROR_NET_INADEQUATE_SECURITY"; 5/8/19, 11:50 PM
Crazy World said...: If you were alive in the 80’s/90’s you heard all about this. If you weren’t, Meet Donald J Trump! Best President in many many years! MAGA; 5/9/19, 12:16 AM
Churchy LaFemme: said...: Not that's it's an important point, but I'm pretty sure it is: Whom do you trust?

'you' is the subject and 'whom' is the object. If you reorder it as: You trust whom?, it becomes clear (though that order is awkward).; 5/9/19, 12:25 AM
Drago said...: "And somebody’s going to look at that who’s been paying thousands of dollars in taxes, who’s this worker, the traditional base for Trump and I think they’re going to be uncomfortable. I think they’re going
to say, hey, wait a minute, what’s going on here?”'

LOL

Finger on the pulse of America!......not; 5/9/19, 12:28 AM
readering said...: Got to go with Unknown on who/m.; 5/9/19, 12:38 AM
Achilles said...: It is funny to watch the leftists demonstrate how little they know about the tax code and how businesses actually work.

I remember when Timothy Geitner, who was Obama’s secretary of the treasury, blamed TurboTax for not paying his taxes.

All of these leftists here today don’t believe a god damn thing they say.

They are just terrible people.; 5/9/19, 12:55 AM
walter said...: C'mon readering...tell us yer retirement haul.; 5/9/19, 1:00 AM
cyrus83 said...: The only even slightly interesting thing about Trump's tax returns would be if they lack accuracy. How much he made and how much he paid are irrelevant issues so long as the figures are true - he didn't write the tax laws, the Democrats in Congress did during the years 1985-1994, and Trump like virtually every other person in the world doesn't pay the government a dollar more than he has to.

To say the returns are complicated is an understatement due to the Trump Organization being a privately held entity where Donald Trump was sole proprietor - all the profits and losses from the business run through his personal income tax, and in years where the business has a net loss, it is certainly possible to not only pay no income tax, but to carry the losses forward to subsequent tax years, even if Trump is worth billions. Look up Publication 536 on the IRS website, it documents some of the current rules for how this stuff works (only 12 mind-numbing pages).; 5/9/19, 1:55 AM
tim in vermont said...: But of course his bleeding base will continue to vote for the king of con.

Who was conned by MSNBC that Trump was a Russian spy while Maddow earned millions?

Trump isn’t conning his base. We have 3.6% unemployment and rising wages, what were were conned out of exactly? And as for sending our sons and daughters, Hillary was the war monger, Trump is doing his best to wind down wars.; 5/9/19, 5:26 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...: It is laughable, as the dems have predominated in congress since WWII, that their "laws" have been written to the advantage of evil conservatives. Ignore Bezos, Musk, the Clinton criminal enterprise, Fauxahontas et al. Obama admin has demonstrated IRS is crooked as well. Such is dem respect for the rule of law.; 5/9/19, 5:45 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...: Medicare... you've paid into it. Dems will give it away.; 5/9/19, 5:46 AM
Paco Wové said...: Extremely curious as to what crime Readering et al. think they are going to find that the IRS didn't.; 5/9/19, 7:20 AM
Nichevo said...: Mad Men, Season One. Bert Cooper: [to Pete] The Japanese have a saying: a man is whatever room he is in, and right now Donald Draper is in this room.

Right now, President Donald J. Trump is in the Oval Office and doing great things. You're just looking for any excuse to lick your lips and sneer, because you're not fit to lick the mud from his boots.

Teddy had you pegged two centuries ago:

Roosevelt's "The Man in the Arena"
BY ERIN MCCARTHY
APRIL 23, 2015
Library of Congress
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
On April 23, 1910, Theodore Roosevelt gave what would become one of the most widely quoted speeches of his career. The former president—who left office in 1909—had spent a year hunting in Central Africa before embarking on a tour of Northern Africa and Europe in 1910, attending events and giving speeches in Cairo, Berlin, Naples, and Oxford, among others. He stopped in Paris on April 23, and, at 3 p.m. at the Sorbonne, before a crowd that included, according to the Edmund Morris biography, Colonel Roosevelt, “ministers in court dress, army and navy officers in full uniform, nine hundred students, and an audience of two thousand ticket holders,” Roosevelt delivered a speech called “Citizenship in a Republic” PDF], which, among some, would come to be known as “The Man in the Arena.”

In addition to touching on his own family history, war, human and property rights, the responsibilities of citizenship, and France’s falling birthrate, Roosevelt railed against cynics who looked down at men who were trying to make the world a better place. “The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer,” he said. “A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticize work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life's realities—all these are marks, not ... of superiority but of weakness.” Then he delivered an inspirational and impassioned message that drew huge applause:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Readering, you are a cold and timid soul.; 5/9/19, 8:14 AM
JAORE said...: " but I'm pretty sure it is: Whom do you trust?

'you' is the subject and 'whom' is the object. If you reorder it as: You trust whom?, it becomes clear (though that order is awkward)."

Whom cares?; 5/9/19, 9:09 AM
GRW3 said...: If there was a serious issue with his taxes, the Obama IRS would have leaked it. Trump has pretty much been under audit since he followed up on Hillary’s birthed question.

The unexplained question is not about Trumps money or emoluments. The real question is how so many politicians who never had a real job and have worked for the government most their lives end up so wealthy.; 5/9/19, 6:51 PM
Michael K said...: And losing $1 billion, this man, who presented himself as so successful. And then Trump’s response is, well, I was in the real estate business, so avoiding taxes is sport.

My college roommate was the son of a real estate developer in the 1920s and 30s in Los Angeles. His father had been rich and broke a half dozen times. He sold the land in Westwood to UC for the UCLA campus in the 1920s. Fortunately for my roommate, his father ended up at the top of the cycle.

To watch the leftists, who have never signed the front of a paycheck, and who have no idea about the tax code except what is on their W 2, opining on Trump's taxes is amusing. I suspect most voters will be looking at their own paychecks and W 2s.; 5/10/19, 6:51 AM