Here’s Theory #3 On How Donald Trump Got $916 Million in Tax-Free Income

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

The theories are piling up! Today, Josh Barro summarizes a theory from Lee Sheppard in Tax Notes about how Donald Trump managed to show a $916 million operating loss on his 1995 tax return. By my count, this is the third plausible theory in circulation. I shall now summarize Barro’s summary of Sheppard.

Sheppard reckons that Trump’s casino operations were organized as an S corporation, in which profits and losses flow through to the owner. So when the S corporation sustained huge losses after the casinos collapsed, those losses passed through to Trump. Subsequently, the corporation’s debts were canceled, which should have shown up as offsetting income. However, because the debts were canceled through bankruptcy, they never showed up on the S corporation’s balance sheet and never passed through to Trump:

“But wait!” I hope you are saying. “Wouldn’t that put Trump afoul of the rule that his tax losses from the S Corporation can’t exceed what he invested in it in the first place plus the prior profits?”

Yes, it would — except that, before the 2002 loophole fix, the debt forgiveness enjoyed by the S Corporation would have passed through to Trump for the purposes of calculating the amount of profit the S Corporation had earned on his behalf, even though the same debt forgiveness did not pass through as actual taxable profit to him.

Sheppard refers to this as a “double dip” — the tax loophole would have allowed Trump to claim losses on his individual income tax return that were ultimately borne by creditors, not by him.

Did you notice the reference to a “2002 loophole” there? This is what makes Sheppard’s theory so precious. “Double dipping” is obviously stupid, and it was never the intention of Congress. However, when the IRS tried to kill it off, the Supreme Court ruled that the letter of the law is the letter of the law. If Congress screwed up, it’s up to Congress to fix it.

So they did. In 2002 double dipping was banned. And guess who voted to ban it?

Yep: Hillary Clinton. So when Donald Trump disingenuously demands to know why Clinton never tried to close the loopholes he used, the answer is: She did. And if there had been any way to make it retroactive, she probably would have voted for that too.

So many theories. But all of them have one thing in common: They demonstrate that although Trump isn’t much of a businessman, he is rich enough to hire good tax attorneys who will hand over huge stacks of forms for him to sign blindly. That’s a helluva qualification for president, isn’t it?

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate