Replies to post #268567 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[BOREALIS]

Trump Freaks Out After Rachel Maddow Shows His Tax Returns To The Country

By Sean Colarossi on Tue, Mar 14th, 2017 at 10:22 pm



Trump said Rachel Maddow's reporting on Tuesday night was "totally illegal."

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, with the help of Daily Beast contributor David Cay Johnston, revealed a portion of Donald Trump’s 2005 tax returns on Tuesday night – and the White House is freaking out about it.

In a statement released a short time ago, the White House said this:

You know you are desperate for ratings when you are willing to violate the law to push a story about two pages of tax returns from over a decade ago.

Before being elected President, Mr. Trump was one of the most successful businessmen in the world with a responsibility to his company, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required. That being said, Mr. Trump paid $38 million dollars even after taking into account large scale depreciation for construction, on an income of more than $150 million dollars, as well as paying tens of millions of dollars in other taxes such as sales and excise taxes and employment taxes and this illegally published return proves just that. Despite this substantial income figure and tax paid, it is totally illegal to steal and publish tax returns. The dishonest media can continue to make this part of their agenda, while the President will focus on his, which includes tax reform that will benefit all Americans.

First of all, with or without this exclusive reporting by Maddow, her ratings would have been just fine. As Jason Easley wrote yesterday, her audience is rapidly growing and even beat Fox News last week among key viewers.

What was particularly striking, though, is that the White House accused Maddow of breaking the law by revealing this portion of Trump’s tax documents. Or, as they called her reporting, “totally illegal.”

But as Maddow pointed out during Tuesday’s program, sharing the returns – which were lawfully obtained – is part of a journalist’s first amendment rights, though we probably shouldn’t expect Trump to know anything about those since he has spent nearly every day of his first two months in office either attacking the press or avoiding them.

Still, Maddow fought back: VIDEO middle of page:
http://www.politicususa.com/2017/03/14/trump-freaks-rachel-maddow-shows-tax-returns-country.html

“For the record, the first amendment gives us the right to publish this return. It is not illegally published, nor are we fake,” Maddow said.

It’s clear that the MSNBC star hit a nerve in the Trump White House by revealing something that no one in the media has yet been able to – his tax returns, even if it was just a portion.

Perhaps the president is just angry because he’s afraid this is only the beginning of what could be more leaks into his financial background, which could show more than Trump’s earnings – but where the money came from.

http://www.politicususa.com/2017/03/14/trump-freaks-rachel-maddow-shows-tax-returns-country.html

[fuagf]

Australian Taxation Office wins landmark case against Chevron

"Rachel Maddow Delivers An Epic Takedown Of Trump’s ‘Ridiculous’ Tax Reform Plan "

IMAGE caption - Chevron has lost a crucial tax case against the ATO

The Australian
11:23AM April 21, 2017

Ben Butler
Business reporter
Melbourne

Chevron has lost a crucial appeal against a $250 million tax bill, clearing the way for tax commissioner Chris Jordan to continue his pursuit of the offshore oil and gas industry over its funding arrangements.

Three judges of the Full Court of the Federal Court this morning unanimously dismissed Chevron’s appeal, and ordered the resources multinational to pay the Australian Taxation Office’s costs.

Chevron said it was “disappointed” with the decision. “We will review the decision to determine next steps, which may include an appeal to the High Court of Australia,” a spokesman said.

The case related to a $2.5bn loan from Chevron subsidiary ChevronTexaco Funding Corporation, incorporated in domestic US tax haven Delaware, to the group’s local arm, Chevron Australia Holdings.

Under the terms of the 2003 loan, the Australian company paid interest back to the US at a rate equal to the one-month interbank rate plus a margin of 4.14 per cent.

The ATO successfully argued that the interest rate was too high, and would have been much lower if the money had been borrowed from an unrelated party.

As revealed by The Australian, the ATO is currently investigating Chevron’s funding of its Australian projects, including the $60bn Gorgon joint venture it runs.

In a submission to a Senate inquiry earlier this month, the ATO flagged deep concerns about the billions of dollars a year in interest the local arms of resources multinationals are paying to offshore affiliates as the sector embarks on a $291bn building spree.

It said the sector was largely funded by related-party debt, paying away an estimated $3.9bn in interest to offshore affiliates last year.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/australian-taxation-office-wins-landmark-case-against-chevron/news-story/3f25531943fa9903a9d94b97ceb96568

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Donald Trump's US tax cut plan could put pressure on Australian Government to follow suit
By business reporter Lucia Stein
Posted about an hour ago
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-27/australia-may-need-to-follow-us-tax-down-amp-economist/8477026

Rachel's take on yet another of Trump's plan which isn't is good to see.

[F6]

Under the Trump Tax Plan, We Might All Want to Become Corporations

APRIL 28, 2017
Corporations are people, Mitt Romney once told us

[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlPQkd_AA6c ]. But if the Trump administration’s tax plan were to become law, in the future a whole lot of people may just become corporations.
That’s because of a huge loophole implied by the broad tax ideas the administration recently released. Unless revised in actual legislation, the plan would give millions of Americans the opportunity to cut their taxes by essentially turning themselves into small business entities.
This mind-bending curiosity of the tax code could undermine the very idea of a job as we know it — or, arguably, accelerate a shift that has been underway for years.
The opportunity to game the system arises from the huge gap between the tax rate paid on individual income — up to 39.6 percent now, or 35 percent under the Trump plan — and the low rate on business income the president proposes, of 15 percent. He seeks to apply that rate to all businesses, including “pass-through” organizations such as limited liability companies and S corporations, and that is where the opportunity for games arises.
[...]
Higher earners have even more to gain from this trick. Many of the costs attached to paying an accountant or a lawyer to set up the structure are fixed, perhaps on the order of several hundred dollars, whereas the potential gains are unlimited and rise with one’s income. And of course people in higher tax brackets gain more from reducing their rate to 15 percent.
This is no abstraction. After Kansas eliminated its state tax on pass-through income, the number of people taking advantage of the exemption soared, leading to [ https://taxfoundation.org/testimony-reexamining-kansas-pass-through-carve-out/ ] hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue for state coffers.
[...]
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/upshot/under-the-trump-tax-plan-we-might-all-want-to-become-corporations.html [with comments]

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