Finance

Weak Loser Donald Trump Paid Less In Taxes Than You Because You Are Better At Making Money

The president of the United States pays the tax rate of a preteen paperboy because he is worse at making money than a preteen paperboy.

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I’ve been working since I was a preteen with a paper route. For most of those early years of low-wage work, throughout high school, college, and eventually law school, like most taxpayers, I had a tax refund to look forward to at the end of the year. When I became a lawyer, I started earning a much higher income, and I also stopped withholding too much from my paychecks. That means that most years now, I have to stroke a check to Uncle Sam at the end of the year.

And, you know, I don’t really mind doing it. Yeah, I have to get over the initial pangs of tightwaddedness that anyone who remembers earning $5.15 an hour feels whenever they have to pay for anything. But once that feeling passes, I like to think about all the roads, schools, and parks my tax dollars are helping fund. I like to wave to the mailman who never fails to bring the crap I ordered from Amazon, and I like to see veterans getting the free healthcare they’ve earned every time I go to the VA for a pro bono legal-advice clinic. I’m less thrilled about the police tank that is often parked a couple blocks from my house and about the many government purchases of God knows what from Raytheon. Still, all things considered, we get quite a bit out of our tax dollars, and we all get the chance to give quite a bit back too. With only a small minority of young people even eligible for military service and with veterans representing less than seven percent of the U.S. population, simply paying your fair share in taxes every year to keep your country running is arguably the most patriotic thing most Americans will do over the course of their lives.

So, it didn’t really come as much of a surprise to learn that noted nonpatriot Donald Trump didn’t just dodge the draft with fake bone spurs, he also paid no income tax at all in 10 of the previous 15 years and had an annual income tax bill of just $750 for 2016 and 2017. The reason Trump paid nothing (or next to nothing) is that he reported that he lost much more money than he made.

Finally acquired by the New York Times, Trump’s tax returns contain the information that he disclosed to the IRS. Under 26 U.S.C. § 7206 of the Internal Revenue Code, any person who:

Willfully makes and subscribes any return, statement, or other document, which contains or is verified by a written declaration that it is made under the penalties of perjury, and which he does not believe to be true and correct as to every material matter … shall be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more than $100,000 ($500,000 in the case of a corporation), or imprisoned not more than 3 years, or both, together with the costs of prosecution.

That means Trump is either a liar and a felon who has grossly underreported his income, or he is lying about how rich and successful he’s constantly claiming to be. Rich, successful people don’t almost always lose huge amounts of money on an annual basis.

Journalist and author Timothy O’Brien, who published TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald in 2005 (toward the early end of Trump’s staggering run of annual losses reported on his tax returns), estimated Trump’s real wealth at the time at $150 million to $250 million. Trump, who claimed to have at least $5 billion at the time, sued O’Brien for defamation, and lost. If O’Brien was even close, that spells big financial trouble for Trump. After years of annual losses, Trump now has $421 million in personally guaranteed debts coming due within the next four years, according to his taxes.

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If there is one thing Trump has in common with the American public, it’s being swamped in debt. It’s certainly not his annual obligation to pay taxes — as of 2016, the Congressional Budget Office calculated that the middle 20 percent of U.S. income earners (those households making about $60,000 annually) paid an average of $2,200 in federal income taxes, which is, of course, more than $750 or zero.

But if you’re paying more taxes than Trump (and you almost certainly are), you don’t have to be upset about it. The president of the United States pays the tax rate of a preteen paperboy because he is worse at making money than a preteen paperboy. He’s a loser who can’t keep himself afloat without resorting to fraud. Your skills, on the other hand, allow you to earn an honest income, to pay your bills, and to help out your country by patriotically contributing a reasonable amount in taxes. Take pride in that.

Jonathan Wolf is a litigation associate at a midsize, full-service Minnesota firm. He also teaches as an adjunct writing professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, has written for a wide variety of publications, and makes it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.

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