2020 Election MEGAthread

[Jibartik]

Originally Posted by fastboy21 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If Trump broke the law he should be punished, but the actual problem is that he probably didn't break the law. He just played the game, like most of the super wealthy...on both sides of the aisle.

As for his other business practices (like breaking deals and not paying people) this is not new. Folks have known about his unethical business practices for decades --- even the article you linked is more than four years old. It doesn't have anything to do with him taking advantage of the tax code.

Everyone knows the tax code is broken in America...but blaming Trump for it is a non-sequitur for me. And again, this is coming from someone who isn't a Trump fan...there is plenty of shit to pin on him that is actually his fault without blaming him for the idiotic tax code in America.

Yeah I think you're absolutely 100% correct, however, that said, if moviestars are writing that stuff off, Im over it someone light the match already [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Speaking of that, the ultimate tittle bout 1 is happening tonight?? That is blowing my mind.

Edit: This article seems to have compelling arguments that celebs are not able to write that stuff off.

The funny thing is we should be waiting to hear from other celebs before we pass any judgement on this one. We should wait to hear from the rest of hollywood, is this something that all celebs do? Some? One? If its just Trump, its pretty clear to me he was knowingly breaking the law. If it's some, then it's still, pretty clear to me he was knowingly breaking the law. If it's all, then we need to change that law for crying out loud.

[-TK-]

Originally Posted by fastboy21 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

How many people did you employ/hire to do productive things?

Originally Posted by Jibartik [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This many: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...uits/85297274/

You're avoiding the question because you employ no one and provide nothing to your community. Got it. Meanwhile, the Trump agencies employ over 22,000 people currently. Then you show us that over the last ~35 years he's had some bad dealings with contractors. You just assume that all those cases the contractor was on the up-and-up, and Trump was always in the wrong. Got it. Apparently you don't work in any big cities on large construction projects because this stuff happens a lot. 60 lawsuits and a couple hundred liens and settlements over billions of dollars worth of projects in the last 35 years doesn't scream corruption. I'm not saying Trump is the most honest businessman out there by any means, but he is far from the most corrupt and what you linked is just a smear piece designed to goad people that have no idea what working with big money is like. It's a lot of lawyers. Of course they're not going to write an article about the thousands or tens of thousands other small contractors that did get paid over the course of the last 35-40 years. Those headlines won't make you angry enough to click.

With the hair stuff, sure it seems egregious to me, but I'm not a celebrity that has my hair done for TV and public appearances like he does. From everything I can find the $70k was from a 12 year time span breaking it down to about $5,833.33 a year. That's $200 a pop for his hair 29 times a year. And I'm sure they have stylists that charge just for being there whether he really lets them do anything to it or not. That doesn't seam outlandish for someone that is in the spotlight as much as he was/is and depending on how everything is structured, it might have had to go through his personal taxes if he used his own people outside of those provided by the production company. I don't know about the Ivanka hair thing, because of course we have no details - just a sensationalist news article. But again, it all depends on how his businesses are structured and what they said her role was. I doubt it will cause him much fuss in the end outside of public opinion. The web of LLC's and X-corps gets very complicated very fast for these guys.

It's easy to vilify Trump right now for this stuff because it's in your face and a lot of you already just hate him so he's an easy target. It sounds like your real issue is with American tax law and his ability to even make deductions on this stuff. It's not so bad once you learn how to use it, or can pay someone to use it for you.

[Viscere]

Originally Posted by fastboy21 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

How many people did you employ/hire to do productive things?

bout 100

then sold the company

u?

[fastboy21]

Originally Posted by Viscere [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

bout 100

then sold the company

u?

Then I hope you took advantage of every tax break for employers out there b/c it is good for you and your current/future employees to pay less taxes. This is a good thing for the overall welfare of society and I'm okay with the government encouraging it with subsidy/tax break. The numbers obviously matter, but on the economics principle I'm totally good with it.

In fact, if you didn't take advantage of them I'd think you were foolish.

[douglas1999]

If anyone could be bothered to actually read the ny times article in question, they themselves point out he actually *paid* millions in income tax. His tax *liability* was 750 dollars, but they of course open with the 750 figure cause people are too damn dumb to figure anything out and they know you're gullible sheep.

Think about it socratically; why the fuck would he pay anything at all, if he was exploiting illegalities to do it? "Sure uhhh, I'll pay 750 dollars even though I'm a billionaire and nobody will notice!". You can get pissed all you want about him writing off haircuts or whatever so you can remain angry at him even though the narrative you were fed is a total horseshit lie, but I'd suggest you should be angrier at the people feeding you this lie.

[Jibartik]

I think celebrities' writing off their entourage is despicable and we should be changing the law right now instead of measuring each others internet reading dicks.

In the old days when shit like this happened and it turned out the little man was getting screwed, we'd make a national interest about fixing it.

Now we make one about whos political idol is smarter than the others its so insane what is this ROME???

[Jibartik]

How much money is Hollywood worming its way out of by writing off everything they do as a beauty expense??

I would imagine 50% of their lavish lifestyle is being written off. I'm probably foolish, and its more like 100%

Its like, I dont even care about Trump. Im mad about this, are you kidding me, celebrities' can write off beauty expenses?? This is some hunger games shit everyone should be mad at this regardless of your religion.

[Googi]

ill be buying myself a brand new 8k tv this christmas and writing it off as a security camera monitor

whos fuckin mad?

[Patriam1066]

Originally Posted by Googi [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

ill be buying myself a brand new 8k tv this christmas and writing it off as a security camera monitor

whos fuckin mad?

You may as well be on Medicaid, equally harmful to your country

[Patriam1066]

It’s the tax code, not Trump personally. Remove your idol from this situation and tell me you’d be OK with a liberal billionaire paying so little

Hell, look at Amazon’s tax profile