Trump's Tax Return

Annachie wrote:What a load of opinionated drivel trying to pass itself off as authority.

loads and loads of words about how taxes are bad, the IRS is bad, the NYT is bad....


.... and not a single one about how President "Greatest Businessman" Trump is running up massive losses and has several hundred million USD in loans coming due over the next few years.

You'd think that'd be something of a concern.

Well actually I found Senior Chief's post kinda interesting. Something I haven't heard put quite that way before.

He is right about at least one thing though. The question about Trumps taxes isn't or not they were moral, but rather whether or not they were legal. That is still being sorted out.

But still, Senior Chief... getting a 70+ million dollar refund for a year you didn't pay taxes was a bit much, don't you think? Had I received that check, I would have at least made sure I had it coming before started spending it!!!

Don

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n7axw wrote:Well actually I found Senior Chief's post kinda interesting. Something I haven't heard put quite that way before.

Well, it wasn't his, really. After all, he was just reposting... Larry Correia, I think?

(Unless of course he is Larry Correia)

He is right about at least one thing though. The question about Trumps taxes isn't or not they were moral, but rather whether or not they were legal. That is still being sorted out.

I would argue that questions of morality and questions of legality shouldn't be treated as separate. "Everything we did was legal" is a close cousin to "We just followed orders" in the family of "thin justifications for crimes and atrocities"; Especially when it comes to judging the character of influential and powerful people, trying to escape moral judgment by saying that what they did was legal is... reprehensible, really.

The E wrote:

n7axw wrote:Well actually I found Senior Chief's post kinda interesting. Something I haven't heard put quite that way before.

Well, it wasn't his, really. After all, he was just reposting... Larry Correia, I think?

(Unless of course he is Larry Correia)

He is right about at least one thing though. The question about Trumps taxes isn't or not they were moral, but rather whether or not they were legal. That is still being sorted out.

I would argue that questions of morality and questions of legality shouldn't be treated as separate. "Everything we did was legal" is a close cousin to "We just followed orders" in the family of "thin justifications for crimes and atrocities"; Especially when it comes to judging the character of influential and powerful people, trying to escape moral judgment by saying that what they did was legal is... reprehensible, really.

I am a sucker for morality, actually. So I don't really disagree with you. But the place that really needs to be sorted out is at the level the laws are made and with the electorate. By the time its at the regulatory level or figuring out what taxes to pay, morality really equates to honesty in conforming with the laws that are there.

In Trumps case, I think that once the cards are on the table what we are going to find is tax evasion and financial fraud.

Don

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Warren Buffet explained it well. He was talking about ethics and legality in regard to tax. As he said, people are entitled to take advantage of the legal loopholes otherwise they may as well make a cash donation to the government. However he pointed out that his PA paid more tax than he did, and while that was legal it was unethical.

Daryl wrote:Warren Buffet explained it well. He was talking about ethics and legality in regard to tax. As he said, people are entitled to take advantage of the legal loopholes otherwise they may as well make a cash donation to the government. However he pointed out that his PA paid more tax than he did, and while that was legal it was unethical.

It's kinda sad that the richer you are, you have more and more options to pay less tax than those in the lowest income bracket. It's kind of fucked up.

And this is the norm in all countries that has a functional government.

Actually there is less than what meets the eye in what We've seen so far of Trump's returns.

Questions still to be answered..

To whom is all that money owed? Does that debt represent a security threat to the country due to Trump being leveraged by foreign actors?

Has Trump honestly reported property values in his returns? If Trump to cash out his properties at fair market value, would they cover his liabilities?

I suspect most of here in this forum have our own suspicions about all of this. But suspicions are not answers. We are still pretty much in the dark...

Don

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A lot of very dishonest people who file tax returns get huge refund checks up front, by paying no tax when they should.

They file IRS FORM: EZPZ

The E wrote:

n7axw wrote:Well actually I found Senior Chief's post kinda interesting. Something I haven't heard put quite that way before.

Well, it wasn't his, really. After all, he was just reposting... Larry Correia, I think?

(Unless of course he is Larry Correia)

He is right about at least one thing though. The question about Trumps taxes isn't or not they were moral, but rather whether or not they were legal. That is still being sorted out.

I would argue that questions of morality and questions of legality shouldn't be treated as separate. "Everything we did was legal" is a close cousin to "We just followed orders" in the family of "thin justifications for crimes and atrocities"; Especially when it comes to judging the character of influential and powerful people, trying to escape moral judgment by saying that what they did was legal is... reprehensible, really.

I'm not sure I agree with your logic about differentiating between the moral and the legal.

A lawful Congress imposed certain specific taxes, with certain, specific exceptions. Donald Trump complied with those laws (hopefully... that's what audits are supposed to confirm in any case). A person is required to comply with the laws but not to do more than that.

But to extend your comment about LINKING morality and legality.
- If we as a society determine that it's a morally good thing for everyone to have a college education but college debt is immoral, then OK. It should be free. But who pays for the college itself? Who pays for the professors at the college? Who pays for the infrastructure? Taxes?
- If there's a homeless person who decides to come live in your house, then the homeless person should be allowed to live in your house, along with 17 of his buddies, because it's immoral that homeless people should be homeless. And you should allow them to live in your house because it's immoral for them to be homeless.
- If a person is sick, then the person should be able to get medical treatment. Not arguing that point. But who should pay for that medical treatment, and how much should they pay? Should medical personnel work for free? If a person has an incurable disease (based on current best technology), but could be kept alive artificially at a cost of $100 BILLION per year, then is it moral to do so at the cost of treating perhaps another million people who are sick?

My point is that it would be really nice to do all the things that are "moral," but we unfortunately can't afford all of them. Even at a 100% tax rate we can't afford them. And if we have such a tax rate, then why should we even work? So we have to prioritize. We can afford "X" but not "Y." We codify that prioritization using laws. I could throw the "do the moral thing" back at 99+% of the people in the US... Why do movie stars in California go on and on about other people being immoral when THEY live in gate-guarded $20 million mansions in Malibu? Why do professional athletes not donate all of their earnings above the mean annual income of a US family? Why aren't hedge fund billionaires in New York donating all their money? I mean, come on, it would be the MORAL thing to do wouldn't it? At least SOME billionaires like Gates and Buffet have committed to donate ALL of their wealth. Yes, it WAS a trivial thing, and was probably one of those calculated, "made for TV moments, but President Trump IS donating his entire presidential salary ($400K per annum) to various charities.

Bottom line - I think it's a GOOD thing that morality and legality are different.

WeberFan wrote:But to extend your comment about LINKING morality and legality.
- If we as a society determine that it's a morally good thing for everyone to have a college education but college debt is immoral, then OK. It should be free. But who pays for the college itself? Who pays for the professors at the college? Who pays for the infrastructure? Taxes?

Speaking from the POV of someone who grew up and is living in a country where education is free: Yes. Taxes should pay for all of it.

- If there's a homeless person who decides to come live in your house, then the homeless person should be allowed to live in your house, along with 17 of his buddies, because it's immoral that homeless people should be homeless. And you should allow them to live in your house because it's immoral for them to be homeless.

What a silly idea. Speaking from the POV of someone who grew up and is living in a country with a functional social security net that, at least for the most part, allows everyone to have a place to live... your idea is still bollocks, because tax money should be used to give people the means to find a home, whether that is through subsidization of cheap homes or just by covering rent; this of course should also include strong measures to prohibit predatory increases in rent.

See, the thing is, you are constructing a silly situation and claiming that whatever absurd scenario you come up with is moral because you cannot conceive of a system of social security that actually works.
Consider this: Had I grown up in the US, I would quite likely be dead by now, because of my history. Instead, I am a software engineer earning more than the median wage... because our social security net allowed me to recover from fights with mental illness and allowed me to get stable enough to get an education.

- If a person is sick, then the person should be able to get medical treatment. Not arguing that point. But who should pay for that medical treatment, and how much should they pay? Should medical personnel work for free? If a person has an incurable disease (based on current best technology), but could be kept alive artificially at a cost of $100 BILLION per year, then is it moral to do so at the cost of treating perhaps another million people who are sick?

I am currently paying about 10% of my salary in health insurance costs. So does every german working a regular job. In return, we get full-coverage health care "free at point of purchase". It seems to work out okay.
And here you go again constructing a wild hypothetical with no basis in reality to call it unworkable... because no such disease exists. There are people who require more support than others, but that's why we have a public insurance.

I also note that, while people who do require more help can do fine here, they are utterly at the mercy of others in your system. Not just the "requires billions in special treatment" people from your hypothetical, but even just people with something as simple and commonplace as diabetes, because the of the way you have made health care something people have to cover individually.

My point is that it would be really nice to do all the things that are "moral," but we unfortunately can't afford all of them.

And my point is that you're absolutely, provably wrong about that.

Bottom line - I think it's a GOOD thing that morality and legality are different.

In some cases, sure.

But the concrete point we were talking about in this thread before this derail, where it's about judging the behaviour of those in high office, questions of morality weigh heavier (IMO) than questions of legality: It is easy for the rich and powerful to distort their environment such that whatever they do either is legal or the cost of noncompliance trivial (Consider, for example, a speeding ticket. As I understand it, they come at a fixed price, meaning that to a rich person, they are just a small amount of money they need to pay in order to break the speed limit); thus saying that what they did was legal is beside the point. It may be legal for companies to park billions of dollars off-shore, that doesn't make it good. It may be legal for employers to decide what they offer in terms of health-care coverage, but that doesn't make it good either.

In short: When it comes to passing judgment about something like Donald Trump, the question "Is his behaviour moral" is more important than "Is his behaviour legal", and claiming that because his behaviour was legal, we can't criticize him morally is repugnant to me.