I guess The New York Times is not a big fan of our President, because they recently published some alleged news about his tax returns. People don’t rat on their friends. Especially right before an election.
Maybe it’s fake news. Probably.
Not only did the Times tell stories about the amount of taxes our President had paid, they reported that a lot of his income was coming from foreign countries. The Times reported that Trump earned about $73 million in foreign revenue during his first two years as president. In 2017, they said, he paid significantly more in taxes to the governments of Panama ($15,598), India ($145,500) and the Philippines ($156,824) than to the United States ($750).
Well, that only makes sense. Those other countries are run by dictators, and dictators have all kinds of tricks up their sleeves, to screw honest businessmen like the President. I am totally glad I don’t have investments in Panama, India, and the Philippines, if that’s the way they treat multi-millionaires.
What the Times fails to understand, seems to me, is that we’re in the midst of a spiritual battle. We, the President and me.
The Devil — which is to say, the Internal Revenue Service — has a staff of 73,554 agents and bureaucrats working year round to extract as much financial blood as they can from each turnip. Our only defense, as beleaguered citizens, is our genius for avoiding IRS audits.
In the President’s case, avoiding an IRS audit ought to be a piece of cake. He owns the IRS.
My case is slightly different. But only slightly. You can’t win the battle when everyone is trying to be the General. You need foot soldiers. A lot of foot soldiers, ideally.
That’s where I come in. My job is to distract the IRS from noticing the General on his Horse, by submitting mounds of paperwork every year, filled with as much nonsensical financial information as I can dream up.
The Times makes the snarky comment, for example, that our President writes off his hair dresser appointments as a business expense. So I also write off my hair dresser as a business expense. To throw them off the scent, so to speak.
Our President is also throwing them off the scent, using Twitter. (He should be throwing them off Trump Tower, but that’s another story.) He tweeted, this week:
The Fake News Media, just like Election time 2016, is bringing up my Taxes & all sorts of other nonsense with illegally obtained information & only bad intent…
…Also, if you look at the extraordinary assets owned by me, which the Fake News hasn’t, I am extremely under leveraged — I have very little debt compared to the value of assets. Much of this information is already on file, but I have long said that I may release Financial Statements, from the time I announced I was going to run for President, showing all properties, assets and debts. It is a very IMPRESSIVE Statement…
Not everyone agrees with me, but it seems obvious that a person with an IMPRESSIVE Financial Statement is exactly the type of person you don’t want to mess with.
And not everyone remembers it, but I also mentioned, back in 2016, that I may release some Financial Statements, showing all properties, assets and debts. I haven’t got around to it yet, but I may do it soon. Maybe right after the election.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.