The Times, the Taxes, the Trump

Much as I don't like rehashing points from earlier columns, the New York Times keeps pulling us back to arguments we already "won."

In this case, we go back to an earlier piece on why I thought it senseless for Donald Trump to release his tax returns regardless of what may or may not be in them.  Therein I explained the principal points underlying that thesis, namely:

(1) As an American and a businessman, Trump should have been trying to pay as little tax as possible and as legally as he can, including based on his fiduciary duty to his shareholders and investors, let alone his family (which to an extent is the same thing, but supports the argument just as much); and
(2) Not three people in 1,000 could actually understand the implications of all the forms filed therein, let alone the relationship between the filings of one year and the carryovers from previous and subsequent years -- especially for a businessman of many interests.

At this point we should note that Hillary Clinton's returns were considerably simpler, in that for years all she did was either live off the taxpayer as a senator and a Cabinet member, or deliver speeches for companies and foreign interests trying to buy influence.  The influence doesn't show up on a tax return, and the speeches came with first-class airfare and hotel paid for, so all she had to declare were the 1099s from the influence-buyers.  No jobs created along the way, of course.

But I digress.

The point, of course, is not that Trump declared a $900 million loss in 1995, the only actual "facts" that were in the story (and we have to assume that the three state returns purporting to show that were even accurate -- but we'll stipulate that for the nonce).  The point is that the tax code has grown into a horrendous, bloated mess that requires legions of accountants to try to figure out.  Even if you wanted to pay as much tax as was legal, you'd still need the accountants just to be in compliance.

But this piece is a simple point, and it does not reflect well on the Times.

You see, the point of their story is that the 1995 losses, if correct, meant that Trump "could have paid [oh, horror!] no taxes for as much as twenty years!!!"  OK, I added the exclamation points.

Now, whether or not he actually did pay tax, or no tax, or in which years, is beside the point, because this piece is about journalism as much as tax policy.  And the journalism stank.

In the absence of anything but three 1995 state returns and without any Federal ones, all the Times could do would have been to look at the law, which covers how many years before and after 1995 an American can spread out (carry over) the losses.  So if Trump didn't earn more than $900 million over the subsequent 18 years or whatever the law limited him to, then he would not owe taxes on those years because his "extra" loss from 1995 would carry over.

Of course, he himself said that he had made some $600 million in 2015 alone, so it's certainly possible that his earnings in the later 1990s ate up all those losses and then some, as his businesses recovered.  But we don't know.

And as my earlier piece noted, it only matters that he tried to pay as little tax as possible.  That, as he said, is a reflection of normal business practices and what a normal, intelligent American with an actual taxable income would do.  If he tried to pay as much as possible, he would be stupid and disqualified as president.

So how did the Times manage to stretch "With that loss he could have had no tax liability for 20 years" into an actual front-page article, without even having a copy, real or not, of his 1995 Federal return, let alone any returns from subsequent years?  Couldn't be that agenda overtakes ethics, could it?

It would seem to be a stretch so terribly unworthy of a large-city newspaper as to be beyond belief.  But that is what has happened in contemporary America.  I'll be the first person to say that the Constitution's protection of the press is sacred and not susceptible to modification or interpretation.  But with great freedom comes great responsibility.

By taking a "could have" or "would have been allowed to" and turning it into a front-page story intended to imply a "did", the once-great New York Times has collapsed into a piece of paper better intended for lining bird cages.

They really screwed up on this one.

Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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