As It Happens… Mr. Hinderaker: Moron. AGAIN.

Come now — let us reason… together.

Unlike John (a former litigator), I am actually a lawyer who does the tax aspects, among other things, of real estate companies, and life science ones. I have an honors undergrad degree in both accounting and finance. And more importantly — I have around 30 years experience in these fields, from small (under $5 million) to large (over $10 billion).

I will get the most glaring of John’s errors out of the way first; he wrote:

“…I understand that someone at the IRS feloniously leaked Trump’s tax returns for more than 20 years….”

There is no proof of that — in fact, it is more than likely that someone inside one of Trump’s accounting firms leaked them to The Times.

But… now on substance — it is the part that neither Hinderaker or Hayward mentions, that is most damning.

For now, forget all else (though it will all be provable) — it is highly unlikely that the one central alleged fact set out in these admitted-as-genuine tax documents, from both the 2016 story and this current one… is fabricated:

That is that he is deeply personally indebted to unknown third parties (something he appears to have greatly under-disclosed, on his FEC filings), perhaps now approaching over $500 million, on which some someone(s) hold his personal guaranties, and thus ones he cannot flush in a chapter (as he did in his prior five bankruptcies), not without surrendering all his assets, minus $6,000 to start over with. That he will never do.

So… Who holds that guillotine, over his neck? That is relevant to voting, in 2020.

And that leads to a second point (for now): if he was to be able to deduct those prior losses (under applicable federal tax law), against “The Apprentice” show income, he was required to completely divest his interests in the loss holdings.

Tonight, the documents establish — just on what I’ve seen — that he still held 5% in some of the entities. And thus, all the debt written off arguably became additional, non-cash, phantom income (i.e., taxable) as to him. It seems clear he never paid any tax on any of that. This would explain the years of audit back and forth — as the Service works to prove he wasn’t entitled to take those deductions.

In sum, it is essentially the opposite picture John just tried to paint: the years of audits do not mean he did nothing wrong — they mean (most likely) there are layers and layers to his frauds… and it takes a looooong time, to sort it all out — among his 300 or so subsidiaries.

Here (for now) endeth this lesson, John.

You sir, are… a pure

L I A R.