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  • #76
    Originally posted by DOR View Post
    Is the IRS doing their job correctly? That’s a legitimate line of inquiry, and makes The Trumpet’s tax returns fair game.
    As I've pointed out elsewhere, there is big giant precedent and justification for double-checking the IRS on Presidential taxes: Richard Milhous Nixon.

    Anybody still peddling the "If there was a problem with Trump's taxes, the IRS would've caught it, therefore Congress has no business looking into them" line of thinking needs to have their head examined.
    “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

    Comment


    • #77
      Not a valid arguement, Joe. Nixon did not go through an audit. His returns did not raise any red flags at the time that warranted an audit. However, Trump did go through several audits.

      As per your link, Congress is only looking at the effectiveness of IRS policies vis-a-vi Presidents. They cannot release Trump's details. The best they can do is to force another audit by the very same people who did the audit in the first palce.
      Chimo

      Comment


      • #78
        Originally posted by WABs_OOE View Post
        Not a valid arguement, Joe. Nixon did not go through an audit. His returns did not raise any red flags at the time that warranted an audit. However, Trump did go through several audits.

        As per your link, Congress is only looking at the effectiveness of IRS policies vis-a-vi Presidents. They cannot release Trump's details. The best they can do is to force another audit by the very same people who did the audit in the first palce.
        Sir, Nixon did in fact go through an audit, in 1969. Per the link I posted weeks ago on another thread:

        "The IRS had audited Nixon’s 1969 tax return but failed to catch major league cheating by the sitting president. Only when Congressional tax lawyers went over it, and the IRS did a second audit, did they spot blatant tax evasion."

        I have never once stated that Trump should make them available publicly or that Congress should release his details to the public at large.

        What I've been saying all along is that someone, preferably multiple agencies, should do an in-depth audit of Donald Trump's personal and business taxes, just as was done with Richard Nixon.

        The idea that the IRS has the resources to do such an in-depth audit is erroneous, by an order of magnitude: The IRS is a shadow of its former self, to the benefit of the rich.

        - The IRS has fewer auditors now than it did in 1953
        - The IRS budget has dropped by almost $3 billion since 2010
        - The IRS conducted 675,000 fewer audits in 2017 than it did in 2010, a drop in the audit rate of 42 percent
        - New investigations of “nonfilers,” dropped from 2.4 million in 2011 to 362,000 last year
        - By its own admission, the IRS has done a terrible job of auditing the ultra-weathly

        Donald Trump and his Family are known tax cheats. He is no longer "merely" a failed businessman from New York, he's the President of the United States and the lack of oversight and investigation into his financial background is simply astounding.
        “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

        Comment


        • #79
          I'm not sure on how this is going to put Trump under the microscope. Basically, Congress is going to audit Trump's audit. While Trump may be a baffoon, you can be sure he has enough accountants and lawyers up the ying yang to make his returns would be swimming in grey areas. Congress would not be able to ask Trump why he made this deduction or that deduction. All they can do is to ask the agency why they allowed this deduction or that deduction.

          Again, the best they can do is to force another audit of Trump's returns.

          The rich are always playing games with their taxes. APPLE is not an American company. It's an Icelandic company. At best, Trump is not as successful as APPLE.
          Chimo

          Comment


          • #80
            Originally posted by WABs_OOE View Post
            I'm not sure on how this is going to put Trump under the microscope. Basically, Congress is going to audit Trump's audit. While Trump may be a baffoon, you can be sure he has enough accountants and lawyers up the ying yang to make his returns would be swimming in grey areas. Congress would not be able to ask Trump why he made this deduction or that deduction. All they can do is to ask the agency why they allowed this deduction or that deduction.

            Again, the best they can do is to force another audit of Trump's returns.

            The rich are always playing games with their taxes. APPLE is not an American company. It's an Icelandic company. At best, Trump is not as successful as APPLE.
            Sir, the parallels with Nixon are not clear enough? Nixon was "audited" by the IRS. Which missed $2.5 million in today's money worth of tax fraud.

            You're also assuming that Trump has been audited. Why? Because Trump said so? This is a big part of what Congress wants to know: Was he audited, is he being audited and how well is job being performed?

            Trump's lawyers and accountants and assorted pack of assholes undoubtedly have tried their damnedest to bury Trump's financial crimes but there's only so far they can bury them. They are not supermen, nor are they infallible.
            Throwing up our hands and saying "Well shit, it's Trump and his team of super-attorneys versus just us, so we might as well give up" is...well, appalling. Seriously Sir, what the fuck?

            Trump has been caught red-handed and fined multiple times in the past for financial misdeeds. He is not invulnerable, nor should he be considered as such.

            As for the rich always playing games with their taxes....Sir, I will say it again: This is the President of the United States we're talking about. Shrugging our shoulders and saying "Oh well!" is the height of malfeasance.
            Last edited by TopHatter; 14 May 19,, 18:05.
            “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

            Comment


            • #81
              I am not denying Congress's right to oversee the audit as they see fit. That is the law.

              Congress may very well find something and it is up to the agency to explain why they allowed certain items or why they missed them. The agency can very well re-audit Trump as within their lawful duties.

              But Congress is addressing Presidential audits, not Trump's returns. That is not within their pervue as per their inquiry. So, without adding more resources or changing/adding legislation, again, I do not see how this is going to put Trump under the microscope. There's a limit to the inquiry and the inquiry is to address IRS failings, perceived or otherwise, not to put Trump under the microscope. Yes, Congress would have access to Trump's returns but it is to question the IRS's handling of those returns, not the returns themselves.

              Also, yes, Trump maybe the President of the United States but that does not deny him the same rights accorded to APPLE.

              I am not questioning that Trump may be needed to put under the microscope but what I am questioning is is this the way to do it? If so, how? I can't see it.
              Chimo

              Comment


              • #82
                Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
                Trump's lawyers and accountants and assorted pack of assholes undoubtedly have tried their damnedest to bury Trump's financial crimes but there's only so far they can bury them. They are not supermen, nor are they infallible.
                That's one hell of a defence if you didn't recognize it. It was damned hard to figure out what the Trump Foundation was doing when they don't know themselves. Kinda explain why they're broke.

                Along the same lines as to why the Soviets found the American military doctrine so effective. The Soviets can't follow American doctrine because the Americans don't follow it themselves.
                Chimo

                Comment


                • #83
                  Originally posted by WABs_OOE View Post
                  I am not denying Congress's right to oversee the audit as they see fit. That is the law.
                  But Congress is addressing Presidential audits, not Trump's returns. That is not within their pervue as per their inquiry.
                  Sir, this is not about overseeing an audit. It's about conducting one. Just as congressional staff audited Nixon.

                  However Congress is going about it, it is by law, their right.

                  Originally posted by WABs_OOE View Post
                  That's one hell of a defence if you didn't recognize it. It was damned hard to figure out what the Trump Foundation was doing when they don't know themselves. Kinda explain why they're broke.

                  Along the same lines as to why the Soviets found the American military doctrine so effective. The Soviets can't follow American doctrine because the Americans don't follow it themselves.
                  One hell of a defence or wide open and begging to be taken down, it makes no difference: They Are Not Infallible.
                  A saying ascribed to both US Navy Seabee Construction Battalions and the US Army Corps of Engineers is "The difficult we do immediately. The impossible takes a little longer."

                  For one thing, whistleblowers, turncoats, informants and rats literally shaking in terror to get clear of a sinking ship have taken down bigger and better organizations than Trump. And that's just for starters.

                  As I've said many times in the past, Trump should've stayed in New York where it was safe. He's playing in a completely different arena now.
                  He's stirred up a hornets nest that isn't going to go quietly into the night like some overworked IRS district clerk.
                  “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                  Comment


                  • #84
                    Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
                    Sir, this is not about overseeing an audit. It's about conducting one. Just as congressional staff audited Nixon.

                    However Congress is going about it, it is by law, their right.
                    As if on cue...

                    A federal judge suggested Tuesday he is skeptical of President Donald Trump's efforts to block Congress from obtaining some of his financial records.

                    Judge Amit Mehta held a hearing on Trump's effort to keep financial records from Congress. Mehta did not rule on whether the House's subpoena of Trump financial records is a valid exercise of legislative power, but he said he would do so "promptly."

                    The lawsuit comes amid a widespread effort by the White House and the president's attorneys to refuse to cooperate with congressional requests for information and records.

                    Mehta suggested Congress has broad power to investigate. He at one point said that there isn't a case since 1880 where the Supreme Court or an appeals court found that Congress overstepped its boundaries in issuing a subpoena.
                    I don't think this particular judge is one Trump's flying monkeys.
                    “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                    Comment


                    • #85
                      to the point above:

                      https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...127_story.html

                      Consovoy, a beefy former law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, offered two related points:

                      (A) Congress can’t issue a subpoena or otherwise probe a president unless it is doing so for a “legitimate legislative purpose.”

                      (B) Any “legitimate legislative purpose” Congress could conceivably devise would be unconstitutional.

                      As a result, Consovoy argued, Congress can’t investigate to see if a law is being broken, can’t inform the public of wrongdoing by the executive and can’t look for presidential conflicts of interest or corruption, because that would be “law enforcement.”

                      Forget about the Unitary Executive Theory. This one is closer to the Divine Right of Kings.

                      Mehta, an Obama appointee, probed for the limits of this breathtaking theory but found none:

                      Trump’s finances are not subject to investigation?

                      “Correct,” Consovoy informed the judge.

                      Congress can’t verify the accuracy of the president’s financial statements?

                      “Correct.”

                      If “a president was involved in some corrupt enterprise, you mean to tell me because he is the president of the United States, Congress would not have power to investigate?”

                      No, Consovoy said, because that’s “not pursuant to its legislative agenda.”


                      Consovoy, who is representing Trump as he tries to block the president’s accounting firm from fulfilling a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee for Trump’s financial records, further declared that Congress can’t investigate a president to inform the public of malfeasance (“the president is not an agency”), to see whether a president has a financial conflict of interest in a piece of legislation (“it would lack legitimate legislative purpose”), nor to discover whether financial conflicts impair a president’s ability to make sound policy (“that is law enforcement”).

                      But surely Congress could investigate a president’s compliance with the Constitution’s emoluments clause?

                      “I respectfully disagree in part,” Consovoy persisted, saying Congress can’t engage in “anything that looks like a law enforcement investigation.”

                      Even the Whitewater and Watergate investigations exceeded congressional authority?

                      Here, Consovoy demurred (“I’d have to look,” he said), rather than admit his theory would have indeed banned both.
                      There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

                      Comment


                      • #86
                        But surely Congress could investigate a president’s compliance with the Constitution’s emoluments clause?

                        “I respectfully disagree in part,” Consovoy persisted, saying Congress can’t engage in “anything that looks like a law enforcement investigation.”

                        Even the Whitewater and Watergate investigations exceeded congressional authority?
                        Here, Consovoy demurred (“I’d have to look,” he said), rather than admit his theory would have indeed banned both.
                        Look like Trump's "alternate facts" and demented version of reality isn't holding up too well in real world.

                        Anybody still want to defend this asshole? Anybody?


                        Anybody?
                        “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                        Comment


                        • #87
                          Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
                          Sir, this is not about overseeing an audit. It's about conducting one. Just as congressional staff audited Nixon.

                          However Congress is going about it, it is by law, their right.
                          Nixon is precisely the point here. Congress did not go after Nixon. The IRS did. Congress merely pointed out where the IRS went wrong and demanded the agency to correct their mistakes. And had Nixon not released his returns, we would not learn of it. Nixon owed back taxes and was not taken to court. By law, no one but Nixon is allowed to release that information ... which he did.

                          And this is precisely the point with Trump here. Unless the IRS brings him to court, we would not learn of any wrong doings. If Congress learns of any discrepncies, all they can do is to order the IRS to do their jobs ... and that's it, we would not learn of it unless it is something extremely blatant that warrants a court case which I doubt since no red flags have thus been raised.

                          Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
                          One hell of a defence or wide open and begging to be taken down, it makes no difference: They Are Not Infallible.
                          A saying ascribed to both US Navy Seabee construction battalions and the US Army Corps of Engineers is “The difficult we do immediately. The impossible takes a little longer.”

                          For one thing, whistleblowers, turncoats, informants and rats literally shaking in terror to get clear of a sinking ship have taken down bigger and better organizations than Trump. And that's just for starters.
                          But who do you charge? Nobody, including the perps, knows who done what?

                          Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
                          As I've said many times in the past, Trump should've stayed in New York where it was safe. He's playing in a completely different arena now.
                          He's stirred up a hornets nest that isn't going to go quietly into the night like some overworked IRS district clerk.
                          I wished he moved to China and done his reality TV there and stayed there.
                          Chimo

                          Comment


                          • #88
                            Originally posted by WABs_OOE View Post
                            Nixon is precisely the point here. Congress did not go after Nixon. The IRS did. Congress merely pointed out where the IRS went wrong and demanded the agency to correct their mistakes.
                            Sir, that is incorrect. Congress did indeed go after Nixon, as that previous quote stated: "Only when Congressional tax lawyers went over it, and the IRS did a second audit, did they spot blatant tax evasion."
                            The Congressional tax lawyers spoken of are the US Congress Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT).

                            Originally posted by WABs_OOE View Post
                            And had Nixon not released his returns, we would not learn of it.
                            Sir, that too is incorrect. It was widely suspected and reported on in the news media to the point that Nixon released his returns, hoping to clear the air. (big mistake)

                            Originally posted by WABs_OOE View Post
                            Nixon owed back taxes and was not taken to court.
                            Nixon was not taken to court because Gerald Ford issued him a blanket pardon..."a full, free, and absolute pardon for all offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in..."

                            Originally posted by WABs_OOE View Post
                            By law, no one but Nixon is allowed to release that information ... which he did.
                            It's a matter of who is getting the information: By law, Congress can demand and it "shall be furnished" anybody's tax information. As for relasing it, the GOP themselves have established a precedent in that regard:

                            "a better precedent came during Republicans’ Obama-era investigations into whether the IRS discriminated against conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. As part of those inquiries, Republicans used the law to make public protected tax information about those organizations."


                            Originally posted by WABs_OOE View Post
                            And this is precisely the point with Trump here. Unless the IRS brings him to court, we would not learn of any wrong doings. If Congress learns of any discrepncies, all they can do is to order the IRS to do their jobs ... and that's it, we would not learn of it unless it is something extremely blatant that warrants a court case which I doubt since no red flags have thus been raised.
                            That too is incorrect. The IRS doesn't have to bring him to court, Congress can impeach him for high crimes and misdemeanours. It's just a matter of bringing proof so blatant that even GOP whores protecting Trump are forced to stand aside and let justice prevail.

                            Originally posted by WABs_OOE View Post
                            I wished he moved to China and done his reality TV there and stayed there.
                            It was his reality show that saved him from further insolvency...Fuck Mark Burnett.
                            Last edited by TopHatter; 06 Jul 19,, 01:06.
                            “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                            Comment


                            • #89
                              Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
                              Look like Trump's "alternate facts" and demented version of reality isn't holding up too well in real world.

                              Anybody still want to defend this asshole? Anybody?


                              Anybody?
                              "I am not a crook"

                              Sound familiar?

                              Three years after leaving office, Mr. Nixon defended his actions to the British television personality David Frost: “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” A recent New York Times article about political sex scandals and technology highlighted the sense of invincibility some politicians seem to share: “Part of that has to do with politics, which self-selects for people with risk-taking behavior and a high degree of self-regard.”

                              Mr. Nixon said, “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook.” Do you agree? Would you rather have a leader who is honest but cannot affect change, or one who uses dishonest methods to achieve positive results? Do you think politicians are more prone than others to behave unethically because they view themselves as above the law, or do you think that as public figures, they just receive more attention when their misdeeds come to light? Why? Do you think that violations on the scale of the Nixon administration’s misconduct and subsequent cover-up could take place today? Why or why not?

                              https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2...m-not-a-crook/

                              Comment


                              • #90
                                Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
                                That too is incorrect. The IRS doesn't have to bring him to court, Congress can impeach him for high crimes and misdemeanours. It's just a matter of bringing proof so blatant that even GOP whores protecting Trump are forced to stand aside and let justice prevail.
                                I'm thinking #1 on the whore list would be Graham...

                                Comment

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