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The Trump Presidency 13: The (James) Baker's Dozen

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Ladewig said:
Everyone who makes above a certain number of millions of dollars is automatically selected for audit.

Why is the IRS in a difficult position? They don’t have to make a decision, they just have to follow the law which doesn’t have exceptions for presidents. Now Team Trump might get an injunction to hold it up while it is being argued, but the IRS just has to follow any court orders.
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100% agree that, legally, the IRS has no choice but to hand over the tax returns.
and as far as I know, the IRS automatically audits POTUS and the VP.

But as an agency, the IRS is chronically underfunded, and cannot risk antagonizing the White House. It is possible that, under pressure from Trump, they are never officially ending the audit so that they won't have to make a statement that Trump is committing tax fraud.
 
Mumbles said:
That's another issue - if anything, the wealthy almost always *avoid* being audited.
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I don’t think that’s true.

audit-rates.gif


Most online sources roughly agree.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
100% agree that, legally, the IRS has no choice but to hand over the tax returns.
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What I find frustrating is the disparity that occurs between the powerful and us regular folks.

A driver “shall” present, upon request, his or her driver’s license, registration and proof-of-insurance. Refuse? You can end up in the back of a police car right then and there, charged with violation of a specific statute.

But the head of an agency can simply disregard a similar statute concerning tax returns, and delay and obfuscate. If I were king, the head of the Ways and Means committee would show up at the office of the IRS Commissioner with a written demand for Trump’s tax returns in his hand and an arrest warrant in his back pocket. And maybe a second one for Mnuchin for obstructing justice if he got in the way. Handcuffs have a way of making things real. Sounds draconian, but flagrantly ignoring the law is how checks and balances get eroded, and how a democracy can morph into authoritarianism.

You want a constitutional crisis? Fine! You can make your case from a jail cell, much like those reporters who sat in jail for extended periods for not giving up sources.
 
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Fast Eddie B said:
But the head of an agency can simply disregard a similar statute concerning tax returns, and delay and obfuscate. If I were king, the head of the Ways and Means committee would show up at the office of the IRS Commissioner with a written demand for Trump’s tax returns in his hand and an arrest warrant in his back pocket.
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Sounds just about right to me.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
I don’t think that’s true.

[qimg]https://www.financialsamurai.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/audit-rates.gif[/qimg]

Most online sources roughly agree.
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Come now, are we not skeptics? I propose we test that chart empirically. Give unto me an income of more than ten million a year and we'll see if I get audited. Per that chart it should happen within three or four years, but I'm willing to commit to the experiment for twenty years just to be sure. For Science!
 
I’ve only been audited once, and it was for a trivial error - I had a small Israeli Bond mature and logged the gain in value as a Capital Gain instead of income, or vice-versa - I don’t recall which. Anyway, some automatic reporting somewhere triggered the mistake, and it did not affect my bottom line in any substantial way.

At the time, I think I could have been described as solidly “middle class”.
 
Horatius said:
Okay, it just occurred to me: with Trump's binary-level of understanding of literally every issue, does he actually think that an "open border mindset" is literally just the exact opposite of his "closed border mindset"?
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Yes.

Horatius said:
That is, if you're not for closing the border completely, you're for "open borders"? That is, he doesn't understand what the term "open borders" actually means in practice?
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Yes.

And I mean both of those words literally and non-ironically.







Yeah, how dare they treat the UK the way he treats Canada? Those Bastards![/QUOTE]
 
Norman Alexander said:
From a non-USAian: Just how serious is breaking the Emolument clause of the US constitution? Is it a formal slap-of-the-wrist and a token repayment? Or double-digit years on Alcatraz (yes, specially re-opened just for this)? Or a short walk to a long drop at dawn? Somewhere in between?
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The Constitution does not specify penalties. The only punishment would be impeachment.
 
Trump corruption: A family affair.
Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, the elder sister of President Trump, retired as a federal appeals court judge days after she came under investigation over a fraudulent tax scheme involving the president that was reported last year by the New York Times.

The Trump family used a fraudulent scheme to avoid taxes on hundreds of millions of dollars President Trump and his siblings inherited from their father, according to a Times investigation.
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https://www.salon.com/2019/04/11/tr...e-of-allegations-of-family-tax-fraud_partner/
 
Ladewig said:
Everyone who makes above a certain number of millions of dollars is automatically selected for audit.
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Nope. It's all about the DIF score. There is no dollar amount of income, or deductions, that automatically triggers an audit.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Come now, are we not skeptics? I propose we test that chart empirically. Give unto me an income of more than ten million a year and we'll see if I get audited. Per that chart it should happen within three or four years, but I'm willing to commit to the experiment for twenty years just to be sure. For Science!
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I'm willing to increase the sample size from one simian to a number greater than one of mammals.

ETA: I've been audited before, so I have baseline experience, and I like milk.
 
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Leftus said:
Nope. It's all about the DIF score. There is no dollar amount of income, or deductions, that automatically triggers an audit.
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What does DIF mean?

We are always on the low end for risk of audit, but I don't want to trigger anything
 
Fast Eddie B said:
As an aside, I just finished and e-filed my taxes just now.

TurboTax actually estimates my audit risk as low:

[qimg]https://live.staticflickr.com/7838/47594110021_1a68e6d2a0.jpg[/qimg]
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Wow, that actually looks kind of high to me. Still green is good, but I like to be pegged near the end
 
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