Discussion: NYT: Donald Trump Strategy To Avoid Taxes Pushed Legal Boundaries

1 Like

By the time Trump was dealing with his casino losses, a tax strategy known as ā€œstock-for-debt swap,ā€ was no longer legally viable for Trump, but his advisers were able to utilize a similar strategy where they swapped partnership equity for debt. That allowed Trump to achieve enormous tax breaks while losing other peopleā€™s money. It made it look like Trump had re-payed the entire debt even though the partnership equity might be virtually worthless.

still relevant

3 Likes

538 called itā€¦ Itā€™s gonna be op-research carpet bombing time in response to the Comey emailsā€¦ If the Clinton campaign kept anything in their pockets for the last week of the campaign, itā€™s go timeā€¦

I mean, it helps that Donald Trump is a contemptible scandal factoryā€¦

2 Likes

"Whatever loophole existed was not ā€˜exploitedā€™ here, but stretched beyond any recognition,ā€ Steven M. Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, told the Times.

But there might,just might be may be, possibly an email somewhere that might could possibly contain something improper.

3 Likes

ā€œYour thesis is a criticism, not just of Mr. Trump, but of all taxpayers who take the time and spend the money to try to comply with the dizzyingly complex and ambiguous tax laws without paying more tax than they owe."

ah but do they engage in insane bookkeeping measures?

3 Likes

And somehowā€¦this isnā€™t ā€˜corruptā€™ or even ā€˜ethically challengedā€™. The media reserves THOSE words for Clinton, Inc. right?

3 Likes

Itā€™s dry and itā€™s technical. But itā€™s how they got Capone.

4 Likes

This is simply an example of Donald Trumpā€™s Business Geniusā„¢, and proof positive that he, and he alone, can Make America Great Again.

Of course, had Crooked Hillary done this, then this would constitute proof positive that sheā€™s corrupt to the core and determined to turn America into a third world hellhole.

3 Likes

ā€¦and Iā€™m still hoping for an as-yet-unreported Trump scandal of apocalyptic proportions to reveal itself.

1 Like

A Trump administration could make Grantā€™s look scandal free and heā€™d still have the support of his gaggle of half-wits.

1 Like

Trump: Even the Left Leaning NYT confirms that I am smart. I am really yuuugely smart.

1 Like

A lot of other suspect deals re Trump

Computer Scientists Uncovered a Digital Hotline between Trump Servers and Moscow
In July, a cybersecurity researcher who goes by the pseudonym ā€œTea Leavesā€ noticed a strange pattern of communication between Donald Trumpā€™s servers and the Alfa Bank in Moscow. He became curious about it and collected some traces on this connection. He tried pinging the Trump server and his pings were rejected, meaning the server was configured in a way to communicate only with a specific set of other servers, including those of the Alfa Bank. He and his colleagues contacted Paul Vixie, who wrote much of the DNS code that makes the Internet work. Their conclusion: There was a secret digital hotline between Trumpā€™s servers and those in Russia. What they also discovered is that this hotline was active only during business hours in New York or business hours in Moscow, strongly suggesting it was being used for human communication, not for serving webpages or something automated like that. Also odd was that very large and powerful servers were set up to handle a tiny bit of traffic. Technical experts who have seen the logs have sworn that they are genuine because there are items in them that would be very hard to falsify in a way to fool experts, such as interpacket timing.

What is also interesting is that traffic on the digital hotline between Trump and Russia seemed to correlate with political news. When there was a lot of political news, there was more traffic than when there was little news. On Sept. 21, the New York Times began investigating this matter, and the Trump server was suddenly shut down. Four days later a new DNS entry was created that pointed to the now-restarted Trump server.

Alfa Bank is owned by people close to Vladimir Putin. This isnā€™t the first piece of evidence that Trump has some connection with Russia and Ukraine. His first campaign manager, Paul Manafort, regularly did business with those countries. Trump praises Vladimir Putin all the time. Then there was the DNC hack by the Russians, clearly with the intent of helping Trump. But the nature of the relationship between Trump and Russia is still not clear.

3 Likes

I think thatā€™s a perfectly reasonable thing to hope for, eminently possible and hovering near probable. The sad thing is there are good numbers of awful things heā€™s done that have been known for decades. For me, it was taking away a chronically ill childā€™s insurance because the father, Trumpā€™s nephew, had sued over Fred Trumpā€™s will. Trump took away a sick childā€™s medical insurance in a fit of pique. To me thatā€™s just literally incomprehensible. Then thereā€™s his barging into dressing rooms to leer at naked teens. Children again. Raping his wife and pulling out her hair. But yeah, letā€™s hope for something that really makes an impression.

4 Likes

i know that iā€™m spitting in the wind, but that wonā€™t be happeningā€¦

I once heard a New Yorker say in his best accent:

"TOIDSā€™S TAPERED AT THā€™ END SOā€™S YER BUTT HOLE DONā€™T SLAM SHUT!!"

I heard that comment some 50 years ago and somehow it is still relevant.
ā€¦

I am so ready for trump to get hammered by a girl. But in a stretch the IRS would do as well.

1 Like

True. But thatā€™s just a plurality of GOP voters. If you really, really depressed enthusiasm among all the rest some really good things could happen.

Despite any real proof, itā€™s my opinion that the Clinton campaign should wrap these items together into one tight little message and hammer it while others continue dropping oppo bombs:

  1. Trumpā€™s love for Putin
  2. Manafortā€™s connections in Russia (including his payments)
  3. Network traffic between Alfa and Trump servers, spanning two separate DNS registrations
  4. Russian hack of DNC & Podesta emails
  5. Roger Stone bragging about ā€œback channelā€ at WikiLeaks
  6. WikiLeaks daily email dumps

Seems to me that thereā€™s a thread here. Someone should be pulling on it very loudly.

You know, I think this is a very interesting story, and Iā€™d be interested in more information, However, the technical nuances will be lost on most people, and I donā€™t think this news, as important as I think it really is, will make any impact. Sad but true.

Letā€™s see your tax returns, Mr. Genius, so we can all marvel and learn.

Al Capone was diagnosed with syphilis while he was in Alcatraz (which like Sarah I can see from my house, true) , was released from prison, suffered a stroke, came down with pneumonia and died. I love happy endings.

5 Likes