Trump tax returns released, and no one is surprised that he was doing tax avoidence

[TraderPatTX]

The same people that brought us the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq 2: Electric Boogaloo without any exit strategy. At the behest of their billionaire and corporate donors, of course. They were even warned in the early 2000s that deregulation was causing instability in the housing market, and kept pushing ahead with more of it anyway. Probably in the hopes that a Dem would be elected president before the shit ultimately hit the fan.

The housing market didn't crash because of deregulation and I know you can't prove it. It was caused by the government forcing banks to give out loans to people who couldn't afford them. All in the name of equity.

Nixon's economic policies were garbage, that pretty much sums it up.

No argument there. Nixon took us off the gold standard and began the process of making China a manufacturing powerhouse.

For Democrats, going after billionaires and megacorps is good optics. That's not a guarantee it will happen, but those were the instructions Biden gave to the IRS along with the additional funding and resources. Additionally, not every billionaire and corporation donates to political parties. We'll just have to wait and see. As I said before, I'm tepidly optimistic at best.

It was good optics back in the 80's and 90's, but after 30 years of doing nothing, the people realize that we are truly governed by a uniparty who hates people like you and me.

In other words, Reagan got everything he wanted for six years. Thus the era of "greed is good" began, as did the decline of the American middle class.

Now you are getting the concept of the uniparty, but the decline of the entire country, not just the middle class can be traced back to 1913.

No, it's governance for the many instead of the few. Again: the top tax bracket was 90% when the middle class was at its most prosperous in this country. It wasn't coincidence, and in the modern day we can't keep making the same mistakes over and over expecting different results.

Nobody was being taxed 90% back then. There were so many loopholes that the actual tax rate for high income earners was lower in the 1950's than in the 2000's.

You proposed we eliminate taxation for those making less than $250,000, it's only common sense then that anybody making more would need to have their taxes raised to compensate for that. You might be swayed by crocodile tears coming from people looking to buy a large yacht to tow their smaller yacht, but I won't be. We could literally tax billionaires at 100%, and their standard of living would not change in the slightest.

Government would need to cut all of this extra trillions of dollars being spent since Covid hit. Then we can talk about raising taxes on people.

 

[Deleted member 586536]

The housing market didn't crash because of deregulation and I know you can't prove it. It was caused by the government forcing banks to give out loans to people who couldn't afford them. All in the name of equity.

Democratic controlled 102nd congress under George Bush in 1992, weaked regulations revolving the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which resulted making more money available for the issuance of home loan.
Additional the Republican controlled congress of 106, which then repealed parts of the Glass-Steal Act.

Those who were lobbying for changes to it (repeals) happened to also be the riskiest later on.
Both of these are cited as pretty big causes, as if they weren't repealed, the damage couldn't have blown up nearly as high, or happen at all.

The regulations got looser, not stricter. The goverment didn't force, the "free market" did it's thing, using it's immense power to influence government, to enable them to get richer, at the cost of everyone else.

 

[Hanafuda]

There are two tax brackets that the IRS is most interested in - up to $25K and over $500K. The first group is easier and faster to audit, doesn’t have the resources to fight the government *and* can be easily trapped in the web of various welfare program requirements. This is supported by GAO analysis - the IRS aims at easy targets.

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-104960

Here’s another graph to better visualise this, since the GAO one is ass.

View attachment 346322

You have higher odds (double) of being audited if you have zero income than you do if you make $500K-$1M. Cases of more than $10M income within one tax year are relatively few and far between - around 23.5K households in the U.S., and they’re well-off enough to offload the duty of filing taxes to an army of pencil pushers, so they don’t care.

https://reason.com/2023/01/06/in-2022-the-irs-went-after-the-very-poorest-taxpayers/

 

[TraderPatTX]

Democratic controlled 102nd congress under George Bush in 1992, weaked regulations revolving the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which resulted making more money available for the issuance of home loan.

The 102nd Congress was controlled by Democrats in the House and Senate.

Additional the Republican controlled congress of 106, which then repealed parts of the Glass-Steal Act.

You just proved that a uniparty has existed since at least the 1990's. Thanks for backing me up there.

Those who were lobbying for changes to it (repeals) happened to also be the riskiest later on.
Both of these are cited as pretty big causes, as if they weren't repealed, the damage couldn't have blown up nearly as high, or happen at all.

I would love to see the restoration of the Glass-Steagell Act.

The regulations got looser, not stricter. The goverment didn't force, the "free market" did it's thing, using it's immense power to influence government, to enable them to get richer, at the cost of everyone else.

Banks gave risky loans because they were told the US taxpayer would protect them from their losses. And they were right when both Bush and Obama bailed them out. Hence, the uniparty came to rescue their rich donors.

 

[Foxi4]

https://reason.com/2023/01/06/in-2022-the-irs-went-after-the-very-poorest-taxpayers/

Correct - there’s plenty of poor people to go around and it takes almost zero effort to strong-arm them into submission. Anyone who’s under the impression that the extra IRS spending will be spent on auditing the rich is a fool - they’ll squeeze the poor harder in the long run.

 

[Xzi]

Of course they knew - what does that change?

"Of course I knew sticking a fork in an electrical outlet was a bad idea, but I just had to be sure."

They’re not in the business of ensuring that people have housing, they’re in the business of finance. Their core objective is to make money. If you set up perverse incentives, you will get perverse results. The government wanted to make access to housing easier, but it did so in a dumb-dumb way and the economy crashed. The incentive was to provide loans, not to ensure a favourable outcome, so why would anyone care what the outcome was? Banks don’t control economic policy (although they do lobby, of course) - the government does. Ultimately it’s the government’s fault, it (almost) always is. The banks did exactly what they’re designed to do - their only error was overextending themselves, and the banks that did that filed for bankruptcy as a result, that’s their boo-boo. The bubble was created, and popped, by Washington. If you give someone a bottomless jar of money and tell them they can take as much as they want, someone’s taking the whole jar - it’s gonna happen. Those loans would’ve never been given if the government didn’t provide asinine securities to back them up, they would’ve been too risky (with proof positive being that they were unpayable) and the bubble would’ve never formed.

So your claim is that banks and Wall Street were the victims of the policies and deregulation they had lobbied for for decades, got it. Classic bike and stick meme.

Seems we're at least in agreement then that government cannot play the role of buddy with big business, as is SOP for the Republican party. It must instead play the role of responsible parent to hormonal and irrational tweens, as they're liable to get someone killed without supervision and firm boundaries in place.

 

[TraderPatTX]

"Of course I knew sticking a fork in an electrical outlet was a bad idea, but I just had to be sure."


So your claim is that banks and Wall Street were the victims of the policies and deregulation they had lobbied for for decades, got it. Classic bike and stick meme.

The true victims are our kids and grandkids who will have to pay all that money the federal government borrowed from the federal reserve to bail out the banks who did the government's bidding because they were "too big to fail"; with interest, of course. We should have just let them fail and let smaller banks rise up and take their place. But I was assured by people on the right and the left that we couldn't deal with that much pain back then. Some of those same people are claiming that the current inflation is transitory and that the economy is rebounding right now.

On our current spending levels, by 2035 it will cost more to service the debt than to fund the Department of Defense. The only people who will benefit are the central bankers at the Federal Reserve.

Seems we're at least in agreement then that government cannot play the role of buddy with big business, as is SOP for the Republican party. It must instead play the role of responsible parent to hormonal and irrational tweens, as they're liable to get someone killed without firm boundaries in place.

The government cannot play any role outside of what the Constitution enumerates. Government is not your buddy, your parent or your ATM machine. It doesn't care about you. It doesn't even know you. It only cares about itself, which is why every single person in Washington, with one exception, accumulates an insane amount of wealth not in line with their salaries.

This is why people worrying about Trump's taxes is nothing but a distraction from the real crimes of the uniparty. This keeps us arguing instead of going after the real criminals.

 

[Xzi]

We should have just let them fail and let smaller banks rise up and take their place.

On that we agree, and it should be the same with millionaires/billionaires who perpetually claim more in losses than profits on their taxes. The government should not be in the business of keeping generational wealth afloat, aka keeping the rich rich and the poor poor.

On our current spending levels, by 2035 it will cost more to service the debt than to fund the Department of Defense.

Seems a simple fix then, eh? Take 10% out of the current DoD budget annually and start repaying the national debt. They lose track of more money and assets than that on a yearly basis anyway.

Government is not your buddy, your parent or your ATM machine. It doesn't care about you. It doesn't even know you. It only cares about itself, which is why every single person in Washington, with one exception, accumulates an insane amount of wealth not in line with their salaries.

The analogy is about big business, not individuals. And even supposing the government does only care about self-preservation, it cannot allow corporations to set policy, lest we complete our descent into authoritarian oligarchy and government loses all its power. Things would be even worse under a Bezos or a Musk than they were under Trump.

 

[Foxi4]

"Of course I knew sticking a fork in an electrical outlet was a bad idea, but I just had to be sure."

They’re not the ones sticking the fork in the outlet, they’re the electric company.

So your claim is that banks and Wall Street were the victims of the policies and deregulation they had lobbied for for decades, got it. Classic bike and stick meme.

Seems we're at least in agreement then that government cannot play the role of buddy with big business, as is SOP for the Republican party. It must instead play the role of responsible parent to hormonal and irrational tweens, as they're liable to get someone killed without supervision and firm boundaries in place.

I don’t know how you reached that conclusion from my post, and it’s way too late tonight for me to untangle this. The government offered a tray of free milkshakes and then acted surprised when the fat kids drank all of them, I don’t know what’s so confusing about this. The government is at fault, plain and simple - the government enacted the policy and this was the result.

 

[lolcatzuru]

They’re not the ones sticking the fork in the outlet, they’re the electric company.

I don’t know how you reached that conclusion from my post, and it’s way too late tonight for me to untangle this. The government offered a tray of free milkshakes and then acted surprised when the fat kids drank all of them, I don’t know what’s so confusing about this. The government is at fault, plain and simple - the government enacted the policy and this was the result.

sounds an awful lot like sewing distrust in your institutions, im told that makes you a maga

 

[TraderPatTX]

On that we agree, and it should be the same with millionaires/billionaires who perpetually claim more in losses than profits on their taxes. The government should not be in the business of keeping generational wealth afloat, aka keeping the rich rich and the poor poor.

How do you count losses as income?

Seems a simple fix then, eh? Take 10% out of the current DoD budget annually and start repaying the national debt. They lose track of more money and assets than that on a yearly basis anyway.

Take 10% from everything and it will be paid off even faster. But I think there is another solution. Abolish the Federal Reserve and there is no more debt outside of the few trillion we owe other countries.

The analogy is about big business, not individuals. And even supposing the government does only care about self-preservation, it cannot allow corporations to set policy, lest we complete our descent into authoritarian oligarchy and government loses all its power. Things would be even worse under a Bezos or a Musk than they were under Trump.

Too late. Big Pharma already controls the government, the media, Hollywood and academia. Government will always be up to the highest bidder. Best thing to do is to decentralize government back to the states. These corporations have it easy controlling one government. Watch them trip over themselves trying to control 50, lol.

 

[Xzi]

sounds an awful lot like sewing distrust in your institutions, im told that makes you a maga

Well libertarians are essentially the original MAGA crowd, after all. Anything bad that ever happens in the world must somehow be government's fault, including when there are consequences for corporations getting exactly what they asked for from the politicians they funded and helped elect.

"I choose business ethics."

Libertarians:

 

[lolcatzuru]

Well libertarians are essentially the original MAGA crowd, after all. Anything bad that ever happens in the world must somehow be government's fault, including when there are consequences for corporations getting exactly what they asked for from the politicians they funded and helped elect.

"I choose business ethics."

Libertarians:

View attachment 346468

well where i want to be clear that i dont in any way ever support posting a picture of someone pointing a gun at someone else in any capacity, why is it so hard to believe that it could be the governments fault? this is i think my disconnect, why is everyone in the government a god?

 

[Xzi]

How do you count losses as income?

That's not what I'm suggesting, I'm simply saying losses shouldn't be subtracted from taxes owed unless that would put a person in serious financial jeopardy, which is never the case for billionaires and corporations. Let 'em eat the loss, their failures are their own, and smaller fish have to be allowed to succeed where they could not.

Take 10% from everything and it will be paid off even faster.

Our military is larger and more well-funded than the next ten countries combined, while our infrastructure, healthcare, and education systems rank as some of the worst among developed nations. So it'd be far more prudent to take 20% from the former, put 10% of it toward the latter, and the other 10% toward paying down the debt.

well where i want to be clear that i dont in any way ever support posting a picture of someone pointing a gun at someone else in any capacity

Lol you've never seen Billy Madison? Highly recommend, was a much better era for comedy movies.

why is it so hard to believe that it could be the governments fault? this is i think my disconnect, why is everyone in the government a god?

It's a chicken versus egg type situation. Big banks and weapons manufacturers funded GWB's campaign, so it was inevitable that he'd give them kickbacks in the form of legalized predatory loan schemes and imperialist invasions that would turn into forever wars. Both the people in charge of government and the people in charge of those corporations at the time deserve all the blame that comes their way.

 

[lolcatzuru]

That's not what I'm suggesting, I'm simply saying losses shouldn't be subtracted from taxes owed unless that would put a person in serious financial jeopardy, which is never the case for billionaires and corporations. Let 'em eat the loss, their failures are their own, and smaller fish have to be allowed to succeed where they could not.


Our military is larger and more well-funded than the next ten countries combined, while our infrastructure, healthcare, and education systems rank as some of the worst among developed nations. So it'd be far more prudent to take 20% from the former, put 10% of it toward the latter, and the other 10% toward paying down the debt.


Lol you've never seen Billy Madison? Highly recommend, was a much better era for comedy movies.


It's a chicken versus egg type situation. Big banks and weapons manufacturers funded GWB's campaign, so it was inevitable that he'd give them kickbacks in the form of legalized predatory loan schemes and imperialist invasions that would turn into forever wars. Both the people in charge of government and the people in charge of those corporations at the time deserve all the blame that comes their way.

wel of course ive seen it, im an adult, but i have to be clear about that because in this day and age people can make up blatant lies about anyone they want and as long as the right people profit, other very sad people take it as fact even when it isnt. You conveniently dodged my question by bringing up one of your guys without answering the question, why are all politicians gods?

 

[Xzi]

You conveniently dodged my question by bringing up one of your guys without answering the question, why are all politicians gods?

In what way did I dodge the question when I clearly just blamed a large set of politicians for Afghanistan, Iraq, and the 2008 economic crash? Some Dems had to vote with Republicans to make that shit happen, so obviously they aren't entirely without fault either.

In my thirty-six years on this planet I've never seen any politician truly worshiped with the exception of Donald Trump. Nobody's driving around out there with a truck tailgate completely blanketed in pro-Biden stickers, and a full-sized Biden flag mounted into the bed. Politicians are meant to be public servants, not have cults of personality formed around them. That's how you get fascism.

 

[lolcatzuru]

In what way did I dodge the question when I clearly just blamed a large set of politicians for Afghanistan, Iraq, and the 2008 economic crash? Some Dems had to vote with Republicans to make that shit happen, so obviously they aren't entirely without fault either.

In my thirty-six years on this planet I've never seen any politician truly worshiped with the exception of Donald Trump. Nobody's driving around out there with a truck tailgate completely blanketed in pro-Biden stickers, and a full-sized Biden flag mounted into the bed. Politicians are meant to be public servants, not have cults of personality formed around them. That's how you get fascism.

who worshipped him? he's the most hated president ever? the reason they arent driving around with bradon shit ( respect the office) is because they probably can't afford it. You dodged it because you already know what im going to say next and you are petrified. I know this is probably a pointless question to answer given your condition, but did you ever stop to consider that maybe people ride around with trump flags because trump at least offered to try and make a difference? we can get into the weeds all you want about whether or not he did or didnt do things, but at least he offered to try and actually talked about some of the problems rather than labeling them " russian disinformation" or " conspiracy theories"

edit- Also, i thought you werent from the US, why would you see trump flags at all? unless trump has a big following in other countries im unfamiliar with.

 

[Xzi]

who worshipped him?

That's a rhetorical question, right? Republicans worshiped him, many of them still do. Murals, statues, flags, t-shirts, they plastered his ugly face everywhere they possibly could.

the reason they arent driving around with bradon shit ( respect the office) is because they probably can't afford it.

At least get your stereotypes straight, it's red states that are well-known for large swaths of their population living in trailer parks. Stickers and flags are extremely cheap anyway, so it's pretty much a moot point.

did you ever stop to consider that maybe people ride around with trump flags because trump at least offered to try and make a difference?

Literally every single politician promises to make a difference, it was obvious from the outset that those were empty promises where Trump is concerned. He and his supporters are bonded by their mutual hatred of non-whites and people who don't subscribe to their bastardized version of Christianity, nothing more. They worship him because he echoes their own ignorant opinions back to them.

 

[lolcatzuru]

That's a rhetorical question, right? Republicans worshiped him, many of them still do. Murals, statues, flags, t-shirts, they plastered his ugly face everywhere they possibly could.


At least get your stereotypes straight, it's red states that are well-known for large swaths of their population living in trailer parks. Stickers and flags are extremely cheap anyway, so it's pretty much a moot point.


Literally every single politician promises to make a difference, it was obvious from the outset that those were empty promises where Trump is concerned. He and his supporters are bonded by their mutual hatred of non-whites and people who don't subscribe to their bastardized version of Christianity, nothing more.

its really not, doesnt he have the lowest approval rating out of any president ever? isnt he no longer the GOP frontrunner now? also never saw the statue, you definitely have to cite that one. Well the flags might have been cheap, but gas is still a bitch and half, but you wouldnt know that not being from the US and all. next question, whats the name of that thing where you think something happened that didnt? i couldve sworn trump did something that libbies hated and falsely claimed he was a racist over with some kind of large structure, i believe made out of some kind of element idk its been a while now, been a little bit keeping a roof over my head what with the inflation that doesnt exist and the market thats tanking aka "strong as hell".

 

[Xzi]

edit- Also, i thought you werent from the US, why would you see trump flags at all? unless trump has a big following in other countries im unfamiliar with.

No clue where you got that idea, the flag on my profile has always been US. Specifically I live in Colorado, if you must know. Perhaps you're confusing me for someone else with a Zero avatar?

its really not, doesnt he have the lowest approval rating out of any president ever?

True, but that all-time low was still in the 40% range.

also never saw the statue, you definitely have to cite that one.

https://news.yahoo.com/conservatives-made-gold-colored-trump-023853128.html

Didn't even bother trying to dodge the golden calf comparisons.

isnt he no longer the GOP frontrunner now?

The only person who might challenge him for the nomination, DeSantis, does everything possible to mimic his mannerisms and mode of speech. The party is going to have an extremely tough time breaking away entirely from the impact Trump has had on it.

i couldve sworn trump did something that libbies hated and falsely claimed he was a racist over with some kind of large structure, i believe made out of some kind of element idk its been a while now

You'd have to be more specific, there were hundreds of instances of Trump doing or saying something that could reasonably be construed as racist.