What I am not getting is unless he personally had $943M at one time before losing them all, how is he allowed to claim that as a loss on his personal income tax?
I agree that tax laws don't have to make any sense but this sure looks like double dipping because the investors who fronted the $943M are the ones who had the loss.
I do not believe that Donald even had $943M prior to1995 to be able to lose that much.
Some tax experts are saying its unlikely that billion dollars he lost was his personal money - but there is apparently a loophole for that as well. If that's the case, he's been getting a tax break for years for losing other people's money.
In my experience...It depends on how the businesses were incorporated. The small business I run is taxed as S-Corps - the income flows straight through to our personal taxes. I suspect that Trump organizes as C-Corps - where his companies pay taxes, then he pays (or doesn't) taxes on the dividends - the dreaded double taxation that conservatives rail against.
Also, Trump does not, on his individual taxes, have a fiduciary responsibility to pay as little taxes as possible. In a publicly traded company, for instance, the NYT, you do have a fiduciary responsibility to your shareholders to minimize your tax burden within acceptable levels of risk. But the claim that Trump has such a responsibility on his personal taxes, or within his privately held corporations, because he's a businessman is bullshit.