Taxing Trump

Donald Trump has probably avoided paying most sorts of personal tax that you, a basement dweller or a deplorable,have paid all your life. That’s just what really rich people get to do.

But first what taxes has he paid? Probably billions. Trump, and the industries associated with his name, have employed thousands of pepole for years; bought, sold, built and redeveloped hundreds of properties. His industriousness has generated and paid fuel taxes and property taxes and payroll taxes and healthcare insurances and consumption taxes and sales taxes and on and on and eventually (as he seems to be a successful business man) corporation taxes on profits.

Every single employee and all the activity associated with this work generates and pays taxes. Even more: without jobs, those employees might have been supported by the state! A double cost of the taxpayer. The payroll taxes of all his employees come from his ability to raise capital, deploy it and give people buildings or services in return. That’s a vast amount of real wealth generated and taxed.

But yes, you can do all that and largely avoid paying what would seem like your fair share in personal taxes.

For decades now the hyper-rich, and the industries which serve them, have spent a significant portion of their wealth buying politicians and entire governments. This industry, acting in its own obvious self interest, has written the US Tax Code to the advantage of those who can pay to avoid it.

Hillary’s almost certainly done something similar: she and her husband have flown private jets around the globe for decades. Corporations and individuals give money to her foundation (which they take as a tax deduction). The foundation pays for a jet to fly the Clintons to give a talk: that didn’t come out of taxed personal income and the contributors to the foundation avoided paying some personal income taxes somewhere. That’s what rich people do: they avoid using personal income for expenses like flights so they don’t need much personal income, so they pay less personal tax. They live as if they have a much greater personal income than they do, but, thanks to the ridiculously complicated tax code, and highly paid consultants like Goldman Sachs to navigate it, this is what the mega rich do.

Donald Trump, for sure, contributed to this both directly by backing politicians like the Clintons and indirectly by using Wall Street and international banking firms which are also backing the Clintons today.

These people are the ones desperately throwing money at Hillary (almost as fast as their friends at the Federal Reserve can print it) to try to keep their monster gravy train on the tracks. They’re desperate, at this point.

Their terror seems to stem from knowing that Trump is the financial Snowden they so desperately must stop. He’s used the system so succefully and if they weren’t convinced he’s really going to break it, I doubt we’d be seeing such desperation on the other side. The stakes this time are off the charts for these people.