Questions about Trump's Money

Money, how one earns it, spends and saves it, including how one owes and pays debts off, it matters.

A shrewd business man may find ways to pay pennies on the dollar for his debt.  That may make him a shrewd man, and most will even call that smart; but it doesn’t mean that the financial deal was or is above social reproach or moral scrutiny.

Some things may be quite legal but very questionable when it comes to moral and ethical accountability.  So for example, many smart and intelligent lawyers will work the law to get their clients legally off the hook, financial or otherwise—but that is not the same thing as keeping one’s moral and ethical integrity in tact.

Thus, considering our tax codes, when the system is rigged in favor of the rich and powerful, the rich and powerful will use all their resources to hire tax accountants, tax lawyers, and bookkeepers to take advantage of the system to their benefit (object: to pay no taxes or as little taxes as possible)—without any consideration to the higher ideal of a moral, social, and ethical obligation to paying their fair share of taxes toward sustaining their community’s infrastructure, for example.

Hence, if Donald Trump managed to avoid paying taxes for the last 18 years or so (as a New York Times report by James Stewart indicates), it is not because Trump is necessarily a financial genius.

Rather it is because (1) our financial system favors the wealthy.  (2) Trump has the financial resources to hire the right people for the job—like specialized tax accountants and tax lawyers—to work the system for all its worth in his favor.  And (3) Donald Trump is shrewd enough to do exactly that.

Note: there is no doubt that Donald Trump hires professionals to do his taxes for him.  All Donald Trump has to do is provide the necessary personal paperwork & business bookkeeping & accounting information that is required for his tax professionals to do their job.  He then simply instructs his staff of tax professionals to find as many tax breaks and tax loopholes as can possibly be found to take advantage of.

That approach, my friends, does not make Donald Trump a financial genius.  For every wealthy business man or woman does exactly the same kind of thing at every tax season.  It goes without saying.  It’s a no brainer.

So, if Donald Trump is such a financial genius.  If Donald Trump is such a successful business man on the par with, let’s say, a Bill Gates or a Warren Buffett or a Mark Zuckerberg or a Michael Bloomberg, why then has he NOT released his tax returns for public scrutiny?

My guess is as good as yours, and it’s really pretty simple: Trump is probably not all that much of a financial genius to begin with.  Trump is afraid to release his tax returns to the public eye.  He more than likely realizes that if his tax returns became public, he would have a lot of questions to answer.  In short, Trumps so-called business acuity may not stand up very well under public scrutiny.  Keeping his tax returns secret protects him.  He is obviously fearful of exposing his actual financial reality.  And Donald Trump certainly does not like negative exposure.  Nor does he respect “reality checks.”  It’s that simple.