Trump’s Tax Returns

Last Monday, in the first U.S. presidential, televised debate between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump, Clinton hammered away at Trump on his refusal to publicly reveal his income tax returns of recent years. All Democratic and Republican nominees for U.S. president for the past forty years have made their recent income tax returns public for their campaigns. This is an issue that resonates with voters. Polls show that something like 70-80% of voters think Trump should make his tax returns public.

Trump says he is currently being audited by the IRS, and he claims it is not financially wise for him to reveal his tax returns while this is happening. But in a previous post, I quoted IRS past and present officials who claim that is not so. Yet Trump has refused to even make public the letter the IRS sent him which states that it is auditing him. The IRS does that for everyone it audits. And IRS policy forbids it from divulging to the public names of any taxpayers it is auditing. This Trump refusal to make public the IRS letter has caused some political analysts to suggest that Trump is not being audited, thus that he is lying in order to hide stuff in his tax returns that would be damaging to his reputation. Clinton alleged the latter in the debate.

Today, the New York Times, which strongly opposes New York City resident Donald Trump for U.S. president, published a front-page, feature article about his income tax returns. It includes the facsimile of Trump’s 1995 New York state income tax return. The Times says it received in its postal mail thirty days ago the first page of Donald Trump’s three state tax returns from the year 1995 in the states of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. The Times says the mailing was anonymous. But the package’s return address was Trump Tower, and the postdate shows it was indeed mailed from New York City. The Times article does not expressly state that the Times did not know who sent this mailing, but the article seems to suggest this ignorance.

This mailing did not include any federal income tax returns by Donald Trump. But on state income tax returns, taxpayers must enter their federal taxable income amount for that year on which states base their tax for that year. On all three of these state returns, Trump declared a loss of $916 million on his 1995 federal income tax return. Such losses usually can be “carried over,” that is, applied, to future federal income tax returns. So, it is conceivable that due to this declared loss, Donald Trump may not have paid any federal income taxes for many years following 1995. Trump had this huge loss since his real estate empire in the early 1990s was on the verge of financial collapse.

The Times says it hired tax specialists to examine these documents. These people said these documents do not indicate any wrongdoing. Wealthy people often hire tax specialists who seek tax law loopholes so that their clients can pay less taxes.

The man who prepared Donald Trump’s federal and state income tax returns from the time The Donald was eighteen year old and over thirty years thereafter, including these in 1995, was lawyer and CPA Jack Mitnick. He also had done the same previously for Donald Trump’s wealthy father, Fred C. Trump. Mr. Mitnick specialized in this type of work for wealthy families, many of them living on Long Island, New York.

The Times recently contacted eighty-year old Mr. Mitnick. He is now retired and living in Florida. The Times says Mitnick verified that these copies of tax returns were Donald Trump’s and that that was Mitnick’s signature on them. He also said he was not at liberty to speak about Donald Trump’s tax returns with any specificity without Trump’s authorization. Mitnick, however, revealed some interesting information.

The Times says of Mitnick that he “felt keenly aware of the fact that Mr. Trump was living a life of unimaginable luxury thanks in part to Mr. Mitnick’s ability to relieve him of the burden of paying taxes like everyone else.” The Times then concludes this article by quoting Mitnick as saying of Donald Trump, “Here the guy was building incredible net worth and not paying tax on it.”

Typical of Donald Trump, his lawyer Marc E. Kasowitz responded to this article last night by immediately emailing the Times with an attached letter. It alleges that the publication of the information in this Times article about Donald Trump’s income tax returns was illegal. The Times quotes Mr. Kasowitz as threatening “prompt initiation of appropriate legal action.” Par for the course golfer Donald Trump. (See my last post.)