'Nothing to hide'
As if the US Presidental Elections did not have enough drama to go around, now the long-awaited tax-returns of Donald J Trump, President of the United States may finally be seeing the light of day. To recap, Donald Trump has made significant attempts to keep his tax return data safe from all prying eyes, despite being asked to submit them many times by various US House committees. While it is not a rule that is set in stone, revealing your tax returns has become an unofficial practice since the time of Richard Nixon. As historians have noted, Nixon started the tradition in an attempt to earn public trust by an open show of transparency. As there are no formal rules, different Presidents and even Presidental candidates have released a varying amount of tax returns with some even going so far as to release every single tax return they have ever filled.
Never one for convention, Trump has stonewalled every attempt to bring his tax returns to light with a variety of excuses which always end with him claiming that he will eventually release his "perfect" tax records for all to see. It must be noted that some amount of information on his old, supposedly perfect tax returns was revealed in 2017 as well. These returns pointed to a pattern of tax avoidance and minimisation, a practice that Trump has admitted to and called "smart". What is different this time is that these are not apparently old tax returns. The New York Times has released information on the tax return that he filed in 2016 and 2017. The data shows that Trump paid no more than USD 750 for the year of 2016 and another USD 750 for 2017. Following a practice of overstating his losses, Trump has managed to avoid taxation for decades. Specifically, of the 18 years of returns examined by the New York Times, Trump paid no federal income taxes in 11 of them. In 2008 and 2009, Trump registered a loss of USD 1.4 billion. The report also states that he personally guaranteed loans totalling USD 421 million, loans that will be due very soon. The Times has noted that should he win the re-election, his lenders will be left in the unique position of deciding whether to foreclose on a sitting US President or not.
As anticipated, chaos has erupted after the reveal, a mixture of disbelief, anger and even a measure of smugness from those who have attempted to draw attention to Donald Trump's less public-friendly activities for years. Other, more problematic facts have also been revealed. In his first two years of Presidency, he received USD 73 million from foreign operations. It was also noted that Trump paid USD 145,400 in taxes in India at the same time as he was paying USD 750 back in the US. This raises the question as to whether Donald Trump's foreign income may have had any conflicts with his role as a sitting US President. More reveals are expected in short order as the New York Times extracts more information from their anonymous source. For his part, Trump has already denounced the release as fake news but some say that the damage is done.
This reveal puts Trump supporters in the position of deciding whether their President is an incompetent businessman or a tax-evading criminal, an unfortunate dilemma. Still, as may point out, in the post-truth world of 'fake news', objective reality is hard to pin down. Trump supporters can see this as anything from an attack of the deep state to acts of foreign sabotage and not have to acknowledge anything that comes from such a report. The ones most enthusiastic about this report are those who already have a less-favourable opinion of Trump. While such reveals may have pushed any other Presidental campaign to an early grave, this one may just power on, oblivious and 'politically incorrect'.
