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**DECEMBER 21, 2022**
Kuttner on TAP
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**** The Tax Evader in Chief
Trump is only a more flagrant case of what is all too normal in the real
estate biz.
There is a harmonic convergence between three recent events-the
release yesterday of a summary of Trump's tax returns
<[link removed]>;
the December 6 criminal conviction of Trump's enterprises on 17 counts
of tax fraud
<[link removed]>;
and the $80 billion increase in the funding for the IRS
<[link removed]>.
The tax returns
<[link removed]>,
whose full details will be released in coming days, give a snapshot of
how Trump did it. Though he claimed to be a billionaire, he took bogus
deductions
<[link removed]>
to reduce his tax liability to a pittance. For tax purposes, he reported
$60 million in losses during his presidency, even though he was clearly
making serious money. No wonder he fought so hard to keep the returns
secret.
One of the many excuses Trump gave for not releasing his tax returns was
that he was in the middle of an audit. Now we know that was another
outright lie.
Though the IRS was supposed to audit Trump's returns, the revenue
service somehow never got around to auditing Trump during his first two
years in office, despite being required to do so by law
<[link removed]>, in a
legal mandate whose regulations
<[link removed]> date
to the Carter administration after Watergate, and state that "individual
tax returns for the president and the vice president are subject to
mandatory review."
Trump's scams were complicated, but not that complicated. The IRS was
clearly corrupted while Trump was president. Maybe the additional
funding with help reorder IRS priorities.
As with so much that Trump did, his scams were merely a caricature of
what is business as usual for many American corporations. Far too many
real estate operators, who earn massive profits, pay far too little in
taxes. The tax law is biased in their favor and the IRS has been totally
outgunned. People who take the Earned Income Tax Credit are far more
likely to be audited than multimillionaire investors.
Trump's allies have squawked that this release of Trump's taxes sets
a dangerous precedent-another way that Trump's critics supposedly
have sought retribution; and that when the shoe is on the other foot,
Joe Biden had better watch out. But this is total nonsense. Every other
president has released his tax returns. Trump is under fire only because
he's a grifter.
The right has also vowed to resist the increase in the capacity of the
IRS. Kevin McCarthy has made the reckless claim
<[link removed]> that an "army
of 87,000 IRS agents will be coming for you." In fact, Treasury
Secretary Janet Yellen has stated flatly
<[link removed]> that audits
won't increase for taxpayers with less than a $400,000 income.
The increased IRS staff will first improve taxpayer service and more
importantly restore capacity for audits of the wealthy that was
decimated in recent years. Between 2010 and 2019, the audit rate for
corporations declined by 54 percent, and for individuals with more than
a million dollars of income, it declined by 71 percent.
The new revenue agents are not coming for "you" but for the tiny
minority of wealthy people who evade taxes at your expense, either
through fraud or through barely legal loopholes that should be closed.
The other harmonic convergence is in the right's continuing campaign
of apology for Trump, its attack on the IRS, and its defense of tax
scams that come at the expense of most Americans. In that respect,
recent events are usefully clarifying.
~ ROBERT KUTTNER
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Ticketmaster's Dark History
<[link removed]>
A 40-year saga of kickbacks, threats, political maneuvering, and the
humiliation of Pearl Jam BY MAUREEN TKACIK & KRISTA BROWN
Democrats Frittered Away the Lame-Duck Session
<[link removed]>
A lackadaisical approach led to failure for numerous bipartisan bills,
and kept alive Republican goals to take the debt limit hostage in 2023.
BY DAVID DAYEN
No Time to Waste a Good War
<[link removed]>
When the fighting stops in Ukraine, the West must ensure a generous
settlement-and keep building a revitalized coalition of democracies.
BY LEON FINK
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