(07-18-2018 08:18 AM)Machiavelli Wrote: You don’t want that 200.
They could get his tax records out though. Put in has something over him. That should be obvious by now.
There is this recurring theme that his tax records would somehow contain some sort of smoking gun. That's absurd on several levels.
One, exactly what would you expect to discover in those tax records? You're going to get his 1040, which is going to consist of a bunch of numbers pulled from K-1s from various partnerships, S-Corps, and LLC's in which his properties are operated. That will tell you exactly nothing. And as far as getting the underlying partnership, S-Corp, and LLC returns, which is where the action would be (if there is any) neither Trump nor the IRS can legally disclose them without the consent of every single partner/shareholder/member. So that's not happening. Do I know this because I claim to have seen Trump's returns? No. So how do I know it? Because that's the way any competent tax attorney or accountant would have set up his affairs, and I'm quite certain he has competent people doing that for him.
Two, corollary to one, how many politicians have disclosed tax records over the years? What is the most significant thing found in any of them? Not much of anything that I can recall. You're not going to find what you are looking for in tax returns, either because it doesn't exist, or because tax returns aren't the place where you would find it if it did exist.
Three, carrying this even further, how often do you think Trump and his organization get audited by the IRS? I'm guessing just about every year. He's a wealthy, high-visibility individual, operating in an industry where there are a lot of tax shelters. And I'm guessing those IRS auditors are a whole lot more skilled at finding indicia of probable concerns than is the typical person who would look at Trump's returns and say, "OMG, look what he was doing." I'm guessing that if there were any money laundering or other funny business going on, we would already know about it.