FAKE BILLIONAIRE: Trump’s taxes show what we’ve always known

FAKE BILLIONAIRE: Trump's taxes show what we've always known

Many of us suspected it and now we know it: Donald Trump is a failed businessman, a tax cheat, and a bum – a deadbeat who’s no more a billionaire than your forty-old cousin who still sleeps on mama’s couch.

His entire world is a farce – a trick – an illusion.

The most recent release of his tax returns, when added to the information we already know from the New York Times and other sources, shows that the only thing he ever had a talent for was inheriting daddy’s money.

Let the images speak for themselves.

Here are some of those tax returns from the Ways and Means Committee’s release (with help from the Joint Committee on Taxation):

From his joint filing with Melania in 2015:

From 2016:

2017 (left) and 2018 (right):

So he actually seemed to finally make some money – as president. Good for the grift, you can figure.

2019 (seems like he benefited from the presidency again):

2020:

But even these images don’t tell the full story of what a joke Trump truly is as a businessperson, despite having a veritable empire left to him by his father.

His “DJT Holdings” reported a total loss of over $34 million in 2015, over $64 million in 2016, nearly $58 million in 2017, about $53 million in 2018, almost $44 million in 2019, and a whopping $60 million in 2020.

Likely, it was a combination of Trump actually losing tons of money and reporting even more losses through all sorts of accounting tricks he’s employed over the years, such as exaggerated property devaluation.

This brings us to another one of the problems the committee cited: substantiation.

Time and time again Trump’s claims were not accurately reviewed and substantiated by the IRS.

Forms were missing, the agency too often took his word for things, and it frequently trusted assessments Trump and his lawyers provided.

Basically, we’re talking Keystone Cops enforcement – just utter incompetence.

Despite a policy of auditing presidents every year they’re in office that has existed since the 1970s, the IRS not only failed to audit Trump for every year but one, as expected, but did so only after Chairman Richard Neal requested the returns, and even then literally only appointed ONE PERSON to conduct the audit when it did.

It’s like they were trying to cover their eyes and ears.

One has to wonder if it has anything to do with Trump appointee Charles Rettig making money off of Trump properties WHILE HE WAS HEAD OF THE IRS.

There were other key highlights as well. They include:

·         Trump’s “charitable donations” were found to be questionable at best. A deduction of $21 million, it was estimated, should likely have been less than $9 million. That could mean Trump will be hit with a considerably higher bill. And before you give him any credit for actually donating to charity, know that much of this was for open spaces on his properties, done through deals with the city.

·         A carry-over deduction of over $105 million for 2015 has now been brough into question, once again because of a failure to substantiate. Again, it could mean a massive bill for Trump.

·         The committee has raised alarms that Trump may have given financial gifts to his kids and reported them as loans, avoiding a gift tax. But tell me again about Hunter’s laptop.

·         The committee has also questioned over $126 million in deductions reported by DJT Holdings.

·         And it wondered why management fees at another Trump entity, LFB Acquisition, went up steeply without any real explanation.

If there’s any justice in this world, Trump could be hit with a tax bill that would put him in Alex Jones financial territory.

No wonder he’s trying to grift his supporters with a worthless NFT: he needs the cash!

And a note to those supporters: Billionaires make money!

That’s how they’re billionaires.

Your hero just played a billionaire on TV.

He was as much a real one as William Shatner was a real Star Fleet commander.

The evidence is in and shows that Trump is a deadbeat, a bum, a loser. And he always has been.

Join Ross as he goes after Trump and the other losers on Twitter: @RossRosenfeld

Ross Rosenfeld

is a news analysis and opinion writer whose work has also appeared in the New York Daily News and Newsweek. He lives in New York.