Let’s describe the relationship between the media and its Democratic cohorts and taxes and those who “don’t pay them” as, well, complicated.
In 2012, ABC News’ Jonathan Karl claimed on TV that an auto mechanic earning $75,000 a year paid a higher federal income tax rate than then-Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. But as I later told Karl in a radio interview, that would only be true if Mr. Auto Mechanic didn’t have kids, didn’t own a home, and therefore didn’t take the same deductions as Romney. In an apples-to-apples comparison, I informed him that Romney, at 14 percent, pays twice as much as Mr. Mechanic.
Karl said he would check it out and let me know. He must have used Hillary Clinton’s email server because I never got a response.
The 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, John Kerry, is also a wealthy man through marriage. He bought a 76-foot yacht a few years ago, but he docked it in nearby Rhode Island, not Massachusetts, where he lived and likely used the yacht. It turns out that this allowed him to avoid $500,000 in sales and excise taxes. Embarrassed by the media exposure, he later paid it.
In 2001, Massachusetts, in Kerry, lowered its income tax rate. But if the guilty Bay State liberals wanted to pay a higher rate — so as not to deprive schools, hospitals and everything else — they could check a box and do so. Of more than 3 million taxpayers, only a fraction of 1 percent (930 taxpayers) voluntarily agreed to pay the ancient, higher rate. Not among that fraction of 1 percent was then-Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who once said, “There are a lot of very wealthy people we can tax.” Asked about the apparent contradiction, Frank said, “I don’t trust the (Republican-led) government to spend its money properly.”
The delayed Senator Ted Kennedy, a Democrat from Massachusetts, voted against lowering the estate tax. But his father, Joe Kennedy, placed his family’s fortune in trusts to avoid paying the estate tax, which his son later supported during his Senate career. The delayed Senator Howard Metzenbaum from Ohio, a Democrat who taxed the wealthy, moved to Florida after retirement, reportedly to avoid paying state estate taxes after his death. Considering where he was when he died, it was mission accomplished.
Then there are the cable news hosts who tax the opulent, headed by MSNBC pastor Al Sharpton, whose endorsement was vigorously endorsed by Hillary Clinton despite his criticism of Donald Trump for having “paid nothing in federal taxes.” Sharpton, according to The New York Times in 2014, owes “more than $4.5 million in current state and federal taxes.”
It was The New York Times that broke the “bombshell” that for years Donald Trump “paid no federal income taxes.” This was supposed to be the same New York Times that in 2014—and who knows how many other years—paid no federal income taxes at all.
Donald Trump is a wealthy businessman. Business people don’t usually get opulent by voluntarily paying more taxes than they think they owe. He took legal deductions, apparently using his losses and his casinos to file his income taxes. Completely legal, nothing fancy.
trump card does pays taxes — lots of taxes. He pays payroll taxes, property taxes, excise taxes, sales taxes, local taxes, and all the fees imposed by the various states in which he does business. And what about his claim that he is being audited and therefore does not want to disclose his returns? The explanation is basic, if confusing to those who do not run a sophisticated business.
Trump and the IRS likely disagree on how much he owes and how to interpret tax law to determine the correct amount. Trump, who claims to be audited every year, likely has such disagreements every year. If he were to release his tax returns and the public learned how much the IRS says he owes and how much he thinks he owes, the IRS would be publicly embarrassed and stand its ground, refusing to negotiate lest it be seen as giving in to a opulent man. In tiny, Trump would lose his influence and probably millions of dollars in taxes. What sane person does that?
Warren Buffett, who claimed he paid a lower tax rate than his secretary, questioned what the IRS said one of his companies owed. Given that Buffett is known for wanting to raise income taxes, why doesn’t he just comply with the IRS’s request, pay the money voluntarily, and raise the federal treasury? By the way, has anyone seen Buffett’s and his secretary’s tax returns to back up his claim that he pays a lower tax rate than she does?
But neither Buffett nor, we assume, his secretary are Republicans. Different views for different folks.
