The insolvent incumbent: Trump's finances are beset by hundreds of millions of dollars in debt coming due, as well as an audit battle with the IRS over the legitimacy of a $72.9 million tax refund that he claimed, and received, after declaring huge losses. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/27/us/donald-trump-taxes.html

"The collective and persistent losses [Trump] reported from [his personal businesses] largely absolved him from paying federal income taxes on the $600 million from 'The Apprentice,' branding deals and investments."

For most of the last decade, he's paid between $0 and $1,000.

Ah! This, if I understand it, is the major scandal here…

2009: Trump quits the board of his failed casino. Retaining ANY stake would mean the max amount he could claim is a $3,000/year. He claims $700M on the premise that he walked away completely. But he kept 5% in stock. 1/?

2/? Apparently, Trump needs the cash up front. He files a legal maneuver that forces the IRA to cut a $72.9M check immediately. This triggers an audit so big that Congress is involved. (They're legally required with any refund over $2M — Trump's refund is 35x that much.)

3/? Now that audit was no surprise. It's required by law. His lawyers/accountants must have warned him. The only interpretation that makes sense is that Trump was trying to float the cash, like getting a new credit card to pay down an old—on an exponentially larger scale.

4/? So… deep in debt, Trump uses a dodgy tax maneuver to take out a $72.9M "loan" from the US govt, with plans to delay repayment as long as possible, while he uses that capital to make enough money to pay off it and a whole bunch of other loans set to come due. So far, so good.

5/? His lawyers keep the case delayed in court. Meanwhile, he tries to drum up money with ventures like Trump University, a multi-level marketing company, Trump Tower Moscow, and oh yeah, a presidential campaign. Only one of those really panned out.

6/6 But, of course, the presidency is a huge coup for Trump's audit. It gives him not just immense leverage over the IRS, but also lets him reshape the judiciary, and makes some members of the Joint Committee on Taxation disinclined to embarrass him. He just has to hold onto it.

"[Ivanka] Trump reported receiving payments from a consulting company she co-owned, totaling $747,622, that exactly matched consulting fees claimed as tax deductions by the Trump Organization for hotel projects in Vancouver and Hawaii."

Bigger deductions in Azerbaijan and Dubai.

At some point, it's hard not to be awed at the sheer number of scams they run. It's like they're incapable of doing anything that isn't a scam. If you offered him an Oreo now, or two if he waits an hour, he'd eat both and claim a fraudulent $72.9 million exception on his taxes.

My biggest worry here is that all the discussion tomorrow will be about how Trump got away with only paying $750 in taxes some years. That's an insulting number, and an easy-to-grasp detail, but there are MUCH bigger scandals in these tax returns.

HE'S BEING AUDITED FOR DEFRAUDING THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF $72.9 MILLION DOLLARS, PLEASE DO NOT HELP REPUBLICANS MAKE THIS INTO A STORY ABOUT A $750 PAYMENT.

The whole family has been deducting millions for consulting fees that they charged themselves for consulting on their own projects. "$750" doesn't begin to describe the difference between your taxes and theirs. It isn't even a quantitative difference. It's qualitative.

I know politicos and journalists see a rich guy paying only $750 in taxes as an easy hook for us laypeople to glom onto, but Trump potentially being called to settle upwards of half a billion dollars in debt during a term as POTUS has vastly larger implications for the nation.

Still waiting on the back half of this thread, but so far @DanAlexander21 has shown that Trump owes at least $1.1 billion on various properties. https://twitter.com/DanAlexander21/status/1310342791336284160