Will Trump Cancel His Press Conference On Wednesday?

[Bowfinger]

You're missing the ENTIRE POINT of why people want him to release his tax returns. It isn't to see if he's "broken tax laws". We trust the IRS to catch that. I don't even care if he's (legally) not paid taxes in X years. If he used the loopholes and deductions that are in the tax code to his advantage, then good for him. I do it. You do it. We all do that. I itemize and deduct EVERYTHING within legal reason.

People want to see his returns so we can see who he is in business with. If has a line item showing a billion dollar debt/dealing with Putin then we, as American people, need to see that. If he's doing dealings with the Crown Prince of England, than we want to see that so that can identify potential conflicts once he takes office.

He's not missing the point. He's dodging the point. It's what he does. He's a devoted GOP apologist who consistently does whatever he can to deflect any criticisms of his masters. He adds no value and can safely be ignored.

 

[agent00f]

Not true at all, it could show foreign bank holdings (which must be reported), taxes paid to foreign governments, income from investments in Russia, etc. Even if those investment companies were opaque we could then start researching them to peel back the onion. His tax returns would be the beginning, not the end of investigations into his conflicts of interest.

I'm frankly baffled that ANYONE could be against this sort of rudimentary financial disclosure.

I thought Fern was supposed to be some kind of tax expert...

 

[Jhhnn]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...rumps-news-conference/?utm_term=.e36427f18817

Post-truth, Baby! Post-truth all the way!

 

[Fern]

Not true at all, it could show foreign bank holdings (which must be reported), taxes paid to foreign governments, income from investments in Russia, etc. Even if those investment companies were opaque we could then start researching them to peel back the onion. His tax returns would be the beginning, not the end of investigations into his conflicts of interest.

I'm frankly baffled that ANYONE could be against this sort of rudimentary financial disclosure.

Completely freaking true.

None of what you wrote is relevant to the question at hand - info showing who he has been doing business with. That was the specific question raised by the poster I answered.

Foreign bank accts, so what? He's supposed to own hotels around the world. Why wouldn't he have foreign accts and what do you think that will show? Anyway, who he does business with won't be disclosed on the foreign bank acct info.

Russian investment income? The source (domestic or foreign) is not disclosed when reporting the income. You'll find some evidence on Form 1116 (assuming he claimed a foreign tax credit) but it'll be aggregated and detail will not be available.

Investment companies? If it is reported on Schedule E you'll find a corporate name (the Fed ID # should be redacted) but that's not very helpful. If you could correctly guess the state of incorporation you could pull the records. However, in every state I've checked over the years all you get is the date of incorp, whether it's a for-profit or a non-profit, and the name of the registered agent (typically the name of the attorney filing the paperwork). I.e., shareholder data is not available. States don't even ask for it.

A tax return is a very poor source for the type of info many want.

One thing that would interest me is the names of any entities (partnerships and s-corps) that he owns and are listed on Sch E. Taking those names and running them through LexisNexis to look for any press (news) reports and also all types of tax cases. Might find something. Might not. Might even be the same name, but a different corporation altogether. (50 states, 50 possible duplicate corporate names.)

Fern

 

[jackstar7]

Man... who would be so vile as to spread disinformation?

 

[Jhhnn]

Man... who would be so vile as to spread disinformation?

I dunno... Maybe the birther in chief? It's highly amusing to see him subjected to the same sort of attack he's used for years.

 

[jackstar7]

I dunno... Maybe the birther in chief? It's highly amusing to see him subjected to the same sort of attack he's used for years.

Except that his bullshit was typically completely baseless. This has some basis in reality.

 

[VRAMdemon]

I feel sorry for the people having to transcribe his shit. I mean how do you properly punctuate his ramblings? Commas? Ellipses? Dashes? Periods? Nothing is of a normal sentence structure.

We're going to see a ridiculous relationship with the press - Trump is going to go after them with lawyers, legal restrictions, 3am tweets, denying access - it won't be long until press conferences are just some Breitbart guys teeing up softball questions Trump wanted... and Trump will still ramble his way through them. This is why major media outlets need to boycott these press conferences altogether. It's clear Trump is going to reduce these events to a media-bashing performance strictly for the consumption of his base. After refusing CNN a question because they're "fake news", he picked Breitbart for the next question. Who then asked essentially "given that the media is a pile of shit, how do you suggest we reform ourselves?" So Trump just flat out ignores one of the major news sources, picks a "safe space" one, and then has an (obviously pre-planned) chance to voice himself about how he wants the media to behave.

 

[fskimospy]

Completely freaking true.

None of what you wrote is relevant to the question at hand - info showing who he has been doing business with. That was the specific question raised by the poster I answered.

Foreign bank accts, so what? He's supposed to own hotels around the world. Why wouldn't he have foreign accts and what do you think that will show? Anyway, who he does business with won't be disclosed on the foreign bank acct info.

Russian investment income? The source (domestic or foreign) is not disclosed when reporting the income. You'll find some evidence on Form 1116 (assuming he claimed a foreign tax credit) but it'll be aggregated and detail will not be available.

Investment companies? If it is reported on Schedule E you'll find a corporate name (the Fed ID # should be redacted) but that's not very helpful. If you could correctly guess the state of incorporation you could pull the records. However, in every state I've checked over the years all you get is the date of incorp, whether it's a for-profit or a non-profit, and the name of the registered agent (typically the name of the attorney filing the paperwork). I.e., shareholder data is not available. States don't even ask for it.

A tax return is a very poor source for the type of info many want.

One thing that would interest me is the names of any entities (partnerships and s-corps) that he owns and are listed on Sch E. Taking those names and running them through LexisNexis to look for any press (news) reports and also all types of tax cases. Might find something. Might not. Might even be the same name, but a different corporation altogether. (50 states, 50 possible duplicate corporate names.)

Fern

Can you explain why your opinion is so at odds with tax experts everywhere? Despite unilaterally declaring that you can't figure out those partnerships (wut), you're now assuming that Trump is taking massive political heat from all sides to protect documents that don't say anything.

Surely even you can see why your reasoning is stupid.

 

[FelixDeCat]

I just watched the press conference and I was very impressed with Donald Trump. He is as real as it gets and it will take a courageous man to undue all the mismanagement of our country that has happened over time.

 

[agent00f]

I just watched the press conference and I was very impressed with Donald Trump. He is as real as it gets and it will take a courageous man to undue all the mismanagement of our country that has happened over time.

I'm sure you'll be here to defend why those profits are mysteriously minimal if/when they ever turn up.

 

[Jhhnn]

The Democrats did for 2 years, but this would have been the kind of Bill that the Obama could have gotten passed while he was president, he just never made a serious attempt at it. Which pretty much describes his entire 2 terms.

If so, then it was obviously the kind of bill from Congress that he would have signed, no?

That didn't happen either so your point is what, exactly? That it's Obama's fault that Trump didn't release his tax returns?

 

[Jhhnn]

I just watched the press conference and I was very impressed with Donald Trump. He is as real as it gets and it will take a courageous man to undue all the mismanagement of our country that has happened over time.

And who says Trumpism isn't a quasi-religious leader cult phenomenon?

 

[Grooveriding]

The closer he comes to office, the more clear it is that he'll be taking the US down the rabbit hole of fascism. If a media outlet disparages him, he'll censor them, probably turn a whack job site like Breitbart into America's RT. Your own state news propaganda.

He doesn't seem to have one honest bone in his body. Delusional ramblings from some alternate reality he creates. He's pretty old, maybe the US and whatever other parts of the world he's planning to commit crimes in, will get lucky and he'll keel over.

 

[werepossum]

Maples' flower brings April showers?

lol!

 

[werepossum]

Completely freaking true.

None of what you wrote is relevant to the question at hand - info showing who he has been doing business with. That was the specific question raised by the poster I answered.

Foreign bank accts, so what? He's supposed to own hotels around the world. Why wouldn't he have foreign accts and what do you think that will show? Anyway, who he does business with won't be disclosed on the foreign bank acct info.

Russian investment income? The source (domestic or foreign) is not disclosed when reporting the income. You'll find some evidence on Form 1116 (assuming he claimed a foreign tax credit) but it'll be aggregated and detail will not be available.

Investment companies? If it is reported on Schedule E you'll find a corporate name (the Fed ID # should be redacted) but that's not very helpful. If you could correctly guess the state of incorporation you could pull the records. However, in every state I've checked over the years all you get is the date of incorp, whether it's a for-profit or a non-profit, and the name of the registered agent (typically the name of the attorney filing the paperwork). I.e., shareholder data is not available. States don't even ask for it.

A tax return is a very poor source for the type of info many want.

One thing that would interest me is the names of any entities (partnerships and s-corps) that he owns and are listed on Sch E. Taking those names and running them through LexisNexis to look for any press (news) reports and also all types of tax cases. Might find something. Might not. Might even be the same name, but a different corporation altogether. (50 states, 50 possible duplicate corporate names.)

Fern

While all that is true, it's at least something. Right now all we really know about Trump's business dealings are that they are vast and profitable.

Here's the thing: If Trump won't release his tax records, people are naturally going to assume that he has something to hide. Maybe not necessarily criminal, but something embarrassing, inconvenient, or counter to the image he wishes to project. Trump's a smart guy, so he knows this, and he knows that we know that he knows. Therefore we assume that it's reaally bad, since having everyone believe this must be better than what we would believe were he to release them. This isn't an anti-Trump thing or an anti-Republican thing or a wacky far left Democrat thing, it's just a thing that everyone believes and it is reasonably consistent with what we observe - people hide things for a reason. And given the IRS' behavior under Obama, it's not something that he's hiding against Democrat operatives; they likely have it to know where to dig. It's either something that he's hiding from us, or it's something that can't be used against him without revealing how it was obtained.

I won't absolutely preclude Trump simply being a privacy fanatic, but that's hardly any better as it puts him in the Hillary/Nixon mold which also does not bode well for us.

 

[Bitek]

I feel sorry for the people having to transcribe his shit. I mean how do you properly punctuate his ramblings? Commas? Ellipses? Dashes? Periods? Nothing is of a normal sentence structure.

Do you find you have to turn on an internal "Trump voice" to be able to read it?

You can't just skim over the words like a normal speech or story. It only makes sense when you are doing a trump impersonation. You even know when to do the finger point thing.

 

[brycejones]

Trump managed to make W look like a great orator who could clearly articulate an idea. That isn't a very high bar.

 

[Victorian Gray]

Did you read what i said? "I trust him as much as i've ever trusted a politician" which isn't very much, now go fuck yourself loserboy.

Are your shirts brown or black?

 

[Victorian Gray]

I just watched the press conference and I was very impressed with Donald Trump. He is as real as it gets and it will take a courageous man to undue all the mismanagement of our country that has happened over time.

You are lucky to be getting the president that you deserve. He will hold you safe in his tiny hands.

 

[imported_tajmahal]

Are your shirts brown or black?

It's actually a very nice blue striped cotton polo shirt. Why?

 

[brycejones]

It's actually a very nice blue striped cotton polo shirt. Why?

Was it made in America? Is it only the best polo, the absolute best? Is it so good you get tired of wearing it?

 

[FelixDeCat]

I love all the liberals quivering in fear over a REAL leader, a REAL president!

 

[IronWing]

I love all the liberals quivering in fear over a REAL leader, a REAL president!

Why do you so desire to be led?

 

[Victorian Gray]

It's actually a very nice blue striped cotton polo shirt. Why?

Just curious