Trump Paid Less in Taxes Than a Schoolteacher or a Nurse

Trump Paid Less in Taxes Than a Schoolteacher or a Nurse

Trump Paid Less in Taxes Than a Schoolteacher or a Nurse

What’s most shocking about the president’s taxes are the things that are legal.

Facebook
Twitter
Email
Flipboard
Pocket

EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

The new revelations about President Trump’s tax returns confirm what we already suspected. Trump might be a lousy businessman, but he is a master tax-dodger. He paid no federal income taxes in 10 of the 15 years before his election. In 2016 and 2017, he paid all of $750 a year. The self-proclaimed billionaire paid less than many of the lowest-paid workers in America, many of whom are risking their lives providing essential services during the pandemic.

That said, Trump’s tax returns don’t expose anything shockingly new about his character. We already knew he was a bounder surrounded by grifters. What’s truly shocking about the returns is what is legal, not what is illegal. The returns are another glimpse at how our corrupt political system is rigged by the wealthy and gamed by the greedy.

Yes, Trump’s tax-dodging may include illegal or fraudulent claims. The IRS is auditing a dubious $72.9 million tax refund he claimed in 2010, which erased years of tax payments. He apparently writes off his 200-acre family estate in Bedford, N.Y., as an investment property, even though it serves as a family home. He also writes off mysterious consulting fees, including some paid to his daughter Ivanka when she was a full-time employee of his companies.

Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

Ad Policy
x