Official LRC President Donald J Trump Thread

TTH wrote:

johnny99 wrote:

Here's someone who thinks that both cases are big losses for Trump and that things can move very quickly from here, such that we could see Trump's tax returns before Election Day.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/supreme-court-lawyer-on-tax-return-rulings-if-i-m-donald-trump-i-m-scared-right-now/ar-BB16xSC3?li=BBnbcA1

And remember, there's nothing preventing the Manhattan DA from indicting Trump now, assuming they have evidence to support the charges.

"could have" evidence.

As much as anyone who wants Trump out of there assumes the financials are bad news from a legal standpoint, I've always wondered if the concern with releasing them is because they show him to be worth about 2 dimes.

^of course - that would his worst nightmare

With those governors, COVID has a permanent home in TX and FL

Trollminator wrote:

TTH wrote:

"could have" evidence.

As much as anyone who wants Trump out of there assumes the financials are bad news from a legal standpoint, I've always wondered if the concern with releasing them is because they show him to be worth about 2 dimes.

^of course - that would his worst nightmare

it's a strange thing...in real estate everyone manipulates the tax code to make it look like they aren't making any money and that they don't have any money. Even while they cart off millions. It's a strange tax code. So while I'm sure his tax docs say trump is losing fortunes even if he isn't really...that would not be understandable to many people. It's sort of a PR problem more than a reality problem.

agip wrote:

Trollminator wrote:

^of course - that would his worst nightmare

it's a strange thing...in real estate everyone manipulates the tax code to make it look like they aren't making any money and that they don't have any money. Even while they cart off millions. It's a strange tax code. So while I'm sure his tax docs say trump is losing fortunes even if he isn't really...that would not be understandable to many people. It's sort of a PR problem more than a reality problem.

I think there is a reality problem too. I suspect that there is more in those returns than just the usual "legal" tax dodges.

I'm betting that there is a lot of illegal stuff too. And I'm betting that if you compare the accounting records to the tax records, they won't match up. We already have hints that the payments to Stormy were misclassified. There is bound to be a lot more than that in there.

+1 to fats - good point on the 'two sets of books' issue. that's a serious crime and we already know it's happened.

I'll take it to another level and say that the worst problem might not even be the tax to books mismatch, it's the books not matching up to the underlying activities - blatant fraud... and there is the issue of who is responsible depending on the nature of payments, whether personal or for business. He will personally get away with a lot if it's just fraudulent business stuff. But if he hid personal and unlawful payments in his business dealings that's directly on him.

As far as real estate dealings, I would assume it's one of those areas where the authorities tend to look the other way as long as you fly beneath the radar and don't go too crazy with the manipulation. But as I said before, being POTUS and continuing to be corrupt has exposed him to a level of scrutiny which he surely never wished for. Manafort was another one breaking the law for decades and getting away with it, until he flew too close to the sun. People like these guys tend to become so arrogant and entitled over time that they disregard the risks and even thumb their noses at the law.

Trollminator wrote:

Manafort was another one breaking the law for decades and getting away with it, until he flew too close to the sun. People like these guys tend to become so arrogant and entitled over time that they disregard the risks and even thumb their noses at the law.

I think Manafort joined the Trump campaign so he would have something to barter with Oleg Deripaska, to whom he owed a lot of money. He flew close to the sun to keep from getting whacked.

not completely sure what you are saying but a simple but serious crime I'm sure trump is personally guilty of is giving one set of numbers to a bank to secure a loan...and a different set of numbers to the IRS for tax purposes.

That's all kinds of crime.

What you describe above can be a huge grey area. A lot of it does depend on how it was done and the evidence connecting him directly. Doing things through a company allow you to dilute your involvement (e.g. "my accountant did it" or "ask my staff who pay the bills, I have no clue") and disguise transactions. And usually the owner of the business may not be personally held liable. So what I am saying is that if they are able to carve out criminal activities that are clearly his personal doing (email ordering the payment, personal approval/signing of check, evidence of him directing others to do something illegal), then that turns into a direct trump crime.

Commercial real estate income statements are very straight forward. Expenses and depreciation are subracted from revenue and all cash flow is tied to a single bank account. It's easy to audit and it's impossible to deduct a significant amount of personal expenses.

It's likely he overstates the value of other properties, but they're illiquid assets, are not used as collateral for loans on other properties and it's not illegal to do so.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

agip wrote:

not completely sure what you are saying but a simple but serious crime I'm sure trump is personally guilty of is giving one set of numbers to a bank to secure a loan...and a different set of numbers to the IRS for tax purposes.

That's all kinds of crime.

Commercial real estate income statements are very straight forward. Expenses and depreciation are subracted from revenue and all cash flow is tied to a single bank account. It's easy to audit and it's impossible to deduct a significant amount of personal expenses.

It's likely he overstates the value of other properties, but they're illiquid assets, are not used as collateral for loans on other properties and it's not illegal to do so.

I forgot the biggest deduction from taxable income which is mortgage interest payments.

Rents can be checked against lease agreements, any expense is backed by an invoice and interest expense by loan agreements. Management fees charged by Trump have to be consistent with market rates.

Meanwhile it looks like The Gap is stuck in that 15-16 percentage points range...perhaps more because approval is dropping (which I didn't expect) than because disapproval is rising. President Trump's approval number is now perilously close to dropping below 40%, which I had really thought was rock bottom.

The Biden campaign--AT THIS POINT--is doing fine by staying "quiet" and they should probably stay with that a while longer. Biden isn't giving Trump much to attack directly, and the President's efforts to tie the Dem lefties to Joe don't (yet) seem to be bearing much fruit.

I'm more interested to see what the Dems can do about tying GOP senators to Trump. I'm seeing some good ads doing that, but mostly from The Lincoln Project rather than from Democrats.

Republican Voters Against Trump is also hitting senators, but more in passing.

Though the affect on some RVAT vids is a little hokey, I think they may turn out to be tremendously effective in the presidential race itself: They're unflashy, non-gimmicky stories (mostly from white people) that I think a lot of voters can relate to--GOP voters who essentially are giving "permission" to other Republicans to vote for Biden.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

agip wrote:

not completely sure what you are saying but a simple but serious crime I'm sure trump is personally guilty of is giving one set of numbers to a bank to secure a loan...and a different set of numbers to the IRS for tax purposes.

That's all kinds of crime.

Commercial real estate income statements are very straight forward.

Sorry, but is this some sort of an inside joke I'm not aware of?

agip wrote:

+1 to fats - good point on the 'two sets of books' issue. that's a serious crime and we already know it's happened.

Agreed.

Trollminator wrote:

As far as real estate dealings, I would assume it's one of those areas where the authorities tend to look the other way as long as you fly beneath the radar and don't go too crazy with the manipulation. But as I said before, being POTUS and continuing to be corrupt has exposed him to a level of scrutiny which he surely never wished for. Manafort was another one breaking the law for decades and getting away with it, until he flew too close to the sun. People like these guys tend to become so arrogant and entitled over time that they disregard the risks and even thumb their noses at the law.

Whatever the issue(s) is/are, Trump certainly thinks it's serious enough to raise the issue to the Supreme Court. There's got to be either or both of clear illegal activity or financials which would go against his claims of how wealthy he is....which in his case may be equal to illegal activity such is his ego.

His rants on twitter yesterday only served to reinforce the fact that just about every day he supplies enough evidence that he's a nearly incoherent narcissist unfit for the job that absent a turn around in the economy, he's going to get his ass kicked in November.

Racket wrote:

SDSU Aztec wrote:

Commercial real estate income statements are very straight forward.

Sorry, but is this some sort of an inside joke I'm not aware of?

I've looked at hundreds of cash flow statements and every income or expense is supported by documents. The only grey area is whether certain expenses should be an operating expense or capitalized.

Please provide an example of how you think Trump is cheating using his office buildings or hotels.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

Racket wrote:

Sorry, but is this some sort of an inside joke I'm not aware of?

I've looked at hundreds of cash flow statements and every income or expense is supported by documents. The only grey area is whether certain expenses should be an operating expense or capitalized.

Please provide an example of how you think Trump is cheating using his office buildings or hotels.

ffs really?

just use google. this stuff is all over the internet.

Take property taxes. Trump often employs a tricky two-step. In the 1990s, he bought 147 acres in Westchester County and built a pristine 18-hole golf course, complete with a 101-foot-tall waterfall and a $20 million-plus, 75,000-square-foot clubhouse. In his financial disclosure report filed with the Federal Election Commission this year, Trump valued the golf course and palatial clubhouse at more than $50 million and said he made $10.3 million from it last year and early this year.

However, when it came time to pay property taxes, he claimed that the property and clubhouse was worth just $1.36 million—a 97 percent cut from his FEC disclosure figure. Right before an ABC News investigative report was set to highlight the discrepancy, Trump’s lawyers bumped up the valuation to $9 million. That’s still far short of the at least $14.3 million the city assessor estimated it at. On top of that, in 2008, Trump even got a 55 percent valuation reduction—from $38 million to $16 million.

seriously sdsu - take a break from surfing and do some googling. Here's another:

Documents obtained by ProPublica show stark differences in how Donald Trump’s businesses reported some expenses, profits and occupancy figures for two Manhattan buildings, giving a lender different figures than they provided to New York City tax authorities. The discrepancies made the buildings appear more profitable to the lender — and less profitable to the officials who set the buildings’ property tax.

For instance, Trump told the lender that he took in twice as much rent from one building as he reported to tax authorities during the same year, 2017. He also gave conflicting occupancy figures for one of his signature skyscrapers, located at 40 Wall Street.