"...his anti-authoritarian stance is refreshing." ?????
There is a problem with these articles that propose that what tRump did was not illegal. Even articles like this that admit that it is immoral. But we don't know that his returns are legal. Prosecutors are still diving into this. Paying money to your kid and reporting it as a business expense is not legal. Overvaluing your properties for the purpose of getting loans, then undervaluing them to reduce your tax bill is not legal. Padding your expenses with 5 million per year in consulting fees is likely not legal. I suspect that many forms of illegal activity will be revealed.
Beyond that, there are two other important points. One, despite taking in millions in income, he pays no taxes because he reports even more millions in business losses. This certainly can happen to any successful business from time to time. But for 12 out of 15 years? It boggles the mind how a business could suffer such sustained losses 80% of the time and still maintain its position as a multi-billion dollar enterprise. How people could see this record, which comes AFTER he was already bankrupt at least 6 times, qualifies him as a successful businessman, is beyond comprehension.
In addition there is the well-known observation that much of his property valuation is entangled with money laundering from Russian, Kazakh, and other nefarious oligarchs. These are not properly valued. And finally, let's not forget that a major part of his tax proposal, which was kiboshed in the final bill, was to eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax, which in some years was the only tax he paid.
The author made one really salient point. tRump is not just some slick hedge funder. He is the president. He should be looking after the needs of American citizens. His passion for avoiding paying any taxes to the country he proposed to lead should have disqualified him from the beginning. The fact that it didn't shows that the people of this country buy into this idea that it is OK for him to avoid taxes, simply because he can. This idea needs to be retired.
