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Trump’s Taxes: It’s the Amnesty, Stupid.
05/24/2016   By Paul Abrams | The Huffington Post
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
 

Dollars-to-doughnuts, Donald Trump has money stashed away in offshore tax havens.

Bitcoins-to-Trump steaks, he engaged in abusive tax havens.

After all, he proudly proclaims that he pays as little taxes as possible. How could he have possibly passed up that opportunity?

Moreover, it is critical to Trump that he view himself as one of the masters of the universe. If little ole Romney could stash his measly $250 million in tax havens, how could self-proclaimed billionaire Donald not be part of that crowd? In fact, one might suspect that he would claim he is the greatest tax haven user in the history of the universe.

A funny thing happened on the way to cheating the American people and raising the tax burdens of the rest of us. The Senate Committee on Permanent Investigations, chaired by former Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) uncovered the scams, and, with the help of the Treasury Department, forced some abusive havens to disgorge the names of these criminals.

The IRS then offered the criminals amnesty. In exchange for not prosecuting them for tax evasion (a criminal offense), they were allowed to pay their back taxes, and a penalty, and retain anonymity. This offer occurred for 2008 and 2009 returns. It may have been extended.

Yes, if you are very wealthy, the law does treat you differently. It helps when Congress doesn’t provide the IRS the resources it needs to prosecute this large band of wealthy criminals.

Hence, we need to see Trump’s taxes for 2008, 2009, 2010. Supposedly, the audits on those returns are finished. He either did, or did not, receive amnesty.

Just to be clear, Trump has said that undocumented immigrants broke the law. Hence, no matter what they have done for this country, no matter how good a citizen they have been—including, unlike Donald Trump eg., actually paying taxes they owe, or even serving in the military that Trump did not do when his turn came (more on that scam in another article)—they must be forcibly deported, along with their children who had no idea they were breaking any law when they came with their parents, or separate from their children if the latter are US citizens. They cannot get to the back of the line, pay a penalty, and, after a time, have a path to citizenship.

Amnesty, you see, is a very bad thing, no matter what the path required to obtain it might be.

That is, it is bad if you are poor and brown. If you are white and rich, hey, why not?

Let’s see if Donald Trump himself received amnesty. I realize that it would be just another example of his hypocrisy, and the others do not seem to matter to his supporters.

But, this one’s different. Amnesty for Donald Trump. Until he proves the opposite, we are entitled to assume that he received it.

Of course, that is why we will probably never see those years’ returns. It is also the very likely reason why Romney, who could easily have shown us those years rather than “waiting” for his returns to be finished for 2011 to release them, never did.

Don’t worry, Donald. We won’t have you deported.

No one would take you.

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