So I hear that Donald Trump won't release his tax returns?

@hippyjoe1955 There isn't a law saying he has to but there was suspicion about possible bank fraud after records from his father were rediscovered. Everyone waited way too long though. What they should have done was, as soon as Fred Trump's records resurfaced, immediately gone to Donald and confronted him about it. Instead, they waited until months after he got elected president and then started talking about it. Seems kinda silly if you ask me, but I maintain my assertion that the chief problem with holding politicians accountable for financial misconduct is that it's traditionally the job of the opposition party to do so, and yet most people in the opposition party are guilty of the same shit. And they don't want to incriminate themselves, so they're gonna let the other guy get away with it too. I'd bet money that people like Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden are guilty of the same kinds of fraud and deception on their own finances as Trump is. They're not gonna set the precedent of indicting someone over those crimes because that means they'll be next in line.

@BlueMetalChick There is a suspicion that the moon is made of green cheese. Seriously suspicions like that are not actionable.

@hippyjoe1955 Is it not reasonable to ask to see someone's tax information if there's considerable evidence they may have broken the law?

@BlueMetalChick There has been no evidence. That is the problem. Suspicion is not evidence.

@hippyjoe1955 The records that were obtained contained pretty significant evidence that Donald Trump had intentionally undervalued some of his properties to pay less money in taxes on them. At least one court deemed it legitimate enough to proceed.

@BlueMetalChick Says someone who has never done real estate. My house is severely over valued by the city. It helps keep the tax revenue high. Evaluations are never market value. If that is all you have it is pretty thin gruel.

@hippyjoe1955 I need to have done real estate to understand that it's illegal to undervalue your property with the intention of lowering your taxation? I didn't read through Fred Trump's records. My knowledge of real estate or lack thereof doesn't affect the analysis of those findings.

Again, how do you call it "thin gruel" to find evidence that suggests someone may have broken the law? Wouldn't you at least want to examine that person's affairs to make sure?

@BlueMetalChick You have to have done real estate to know that valuation and value are two very very different matters. You can call in three estimators and get three very different evaluations. The fact is that real estate is an open market. I can say my house is worth a million dollars and it is if someone is willing to pay that much for it. However if I had to sell it tomorrow I might only get ten thousand for the place since no one wants to buy it.

@hippyjoe1955 While that might be true, whatever these records that were found in Fred Trump's postmortem possession apparently suggested that Donald Trump paid someone off to report to the IRS that his property value was less than it really is, thus allowing him to pay less in taxes.

Is it really true? Well, I don't know. That's the reason there were calls for him to release tax forms. Even if he IS guilty of it, it's not like he'd be in that much trouble. People do that fairly often and they just have to retroactively pay whatever money they were supposed to in the first place. Even I've committed worse financial crimes than nonsense with property value.

@BlueMetalChick And you think that is going to show up in 2013 and on? Those are the tax records being demanded.

@hippyjoe1955 I suppose it's possible. There's apparently enough of a chance of it that at least one court decided they would proceed.

My personal thoughts are that this should have been addressed a long ass time ago. Those records were discovered before Trump was even elected, and everyone just sat around doing nothing until he became president, and THEN they decided to tell him to release his tax returns. They obviously don't care that much if they waited that long.

@BlueMetalChick Fred Trump died in 1999. If Donald actually did something back then (I rather doubt it since this sounds more like democrap talking points) then the statute of limitations has taken effect.

@hippyjoe1955 Wow, was it really that long ago? I thought he lived past 9/11. Time sure flies.

@BlueMetalChick Not according to Google. He was 94 when he passed. He was born in 1905.

@hippyjoe1955 I believe it. The end of the 90's and beginning of the 2000's was turbulent enough that it's difficult to keep track of exactly when stuff happened. Especially for me because I was living in a refugee camp in Perth.

@hippyjoe1955 undervaluing property for taxes, is tax fraud, when overvaluing property for loans. Which is bank fraud, cant have it both ways.
And, when 45 was running and for the first two years, congress was a repubulican majority. They would never ask for his taxes, as they were afraid of what they would find.

@Carla And when the government over values for tax purposes it is????? The fact is that the IRS has already signed off on it. Done and over move on.

@hippyjoe1955 I think it's a pretty weak case to say that an individual should be allowed to commit fraud because the government also commits fraud.

@BlueMetalChick Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. The government should be charged with fraud for doing it.

@hippyjoe1955 Yes, they should. I don't think any reasonable person would say they should be allowed to get away with it.

@BlueMetalChick And yet they do all the time. They can assign a value to your property and tax you accordingly. Should you fail to pay the tax they can take away your property. There is little recourse since the value of the property is not based on a sale but an estimation.

@hippyjoe1955 your home is valued by your local government. Has nothing to do with the irs. Investment properties are different. You have to report them. And the government has signed off on nothing. Just because attornies and accountants are used to do peoples taxes, they can only report on the information the tax payer gives them.
Trump has documented cases of fraud in the past. Fraud he was guilty of. Look it up, it's public record.

I cant get past the idea that you are happy with jailing anyone else that breaks the law, but trump can do it with abandon, and you look the other way.

@Carla The point is that regardless of what type of property you have the evaluation of it is not fixed since it is not for sale. Let me give you an example. A farmer I know raised cows. He shipped them to the auction mart and sold them to the packing plants. His cows were always top grade. He had one lot of cows go through the auction ring and he got a thousand dollars per cow. Then he had a single cow go through the same ring on the same day and he got a dollar for it. The buyers all went for lunch an no one wanted to buy it. It is the same with real estate. You can have a billion dollar casino and get nothing for it if no one wants to buy it.

@hippyjoe1955 property is fixed. It it valued once a year. You can choose to sell or not. If the local municipalities value your property at twenty dollars, you cant report the value as a dollar. And, you cant tell a bank it's worth a hundred. Multiply those numbers by millions.

@Carla And those valuations are meaningless. I have a car that is written off 20% per year. If I tried to sell it after the first year I wouldn't get 80% of what I bought it for.