[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by RichieRich

So are you telling us that you prefer to pay MORE tax than necessary?

I don't think Azure is saying that. I think we all want to pay what is fair, and Azure is arguing that if the tax code is drafted with so many loopholes that an individual is irresponsible for NOT taking advantage of them. I agree with this. You should be taking advantage of all loopholes available to you. The problem is there are so many tax loopholes available only if you make certain levels of wealth, or have access to certain types of investments.

There's a huge difference between tax avoidance versus tax minimization.

Bingo, and this is where Trump is in trouble. He's intentionally inflated the value of his properties to increase his operational losses, so he doesn't pay any tax whatsoever. To double down on that, he under-reports income and then shields that income through the use of consulting fees, paid back to his own companies. All of this is illegal and is a clear tax avoidance strategy. As Cohen has stated, Trump hires people who aren't afraid to try breaking the rules, because they know Trump will sue and keep them out of prison... until he doesn't. He enables their crooked instincts and it works in his advantage because he can claim they did the wrong and he was at arm's length.

Originally Posted by Azure

A lot of the tax reduction strategies are based around encouraging growth and reinvestment into a company.

Is this what Trump does? Honestly?

We are talking about how billionares use real estate holdings to defer their tax payments, or even claim loses when in fact their asset value goes up and they are still 'rich.'

What we are finding out is Trump isn't rich. It's a facade that is maintained only through obfuscation and trying to stay one grift ahead of the last. His wealth is established by the fact that he has loans out to support his empire. According to his own tax records those holdings are all losers, so will be worth pennies on the dollar when they go to auction. The house of cards will come crashing down on him when those loans come due because he has no cash or cash flow left to support them. He will be forced to sell off everything he has to meet his loan commitments, and go into bankruptcy for the seventh time, because he is almost a billion dollars in debt. At that point, those who provided the backing for those loans will coming looking for their pound of flesh. Some of the debtors have very different ways of collecting than others.