Thread by @doctorow

If you read the @nytimes' blockbuster report on Trump's taxes, you've likely come away with the (correct) impression that Trump is:

a) broke, and

b) dirty.

nytimes.com/interactive/20…

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But you're also likely fuzzy on the details, not because they were missing from the report, but because there were SO MANY of them.

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Finance grifts deploy what @MizDanaClaire calls "The shield of boringness," a layer of performatively dull accounting provisions that obscure an otherwise simple and banal con.

pluralistic.net/2020/04/04/a-m…

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So while the details are important in a "we brought receipts" sense, the actual shape of the scam can be expressed in a very few words, as @davidfickling's thread demonstrates:

https://twitter.com/davidfickling/status/1310380939600510978

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Here it is in a nutshell: Donald Trump is VERY bad at business. Every business he starts spends a lot more than it makes, and he loses a lot of money from them. But Donald Trump has lucked into stakes in various profitable businesses that smarter people ran.

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Whether it's his father's fortune, or The Apprentice, or Manhattan's Far West Side (businesses with competent mangers other than Trump), Trump brings two things to the table:

I. Losses; and

II. Fraud.

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Profits are taxable, so profitable businesses generate tax liabilities. But if you're Trump and you've got a profitable business (The Apprentice) in one hand, and a bunch of money-pits (his clubs) in the other, you can use the losses to offset the profits and pay no tax.

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And then, if you're willing to commit fraud, you can increase these tax offsets and actually turn them into tax REBATES, so the government ends up paying YOU millions and millions of dollars.

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The frauds are really simple. He just declares everything a business-expense and deducts it from his taxes. Tens of thousands of dollars for his hairdresser. Lavish vacations. Etc, etc.

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And he pays his family members to "consult" for his businesses, spreading income around among them, gaining access to new fraud vehicles.

It's welfare fraud: claiming fake expenses for dependents in order to get more money out of the system.

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However, if you are a low-impulse-control dum-dum who can't stop building losing businesses, eventually your losses will outstrip the profits from the businesses run by smart people and you'll go broke.

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Which is why Trump has gone bankrupt so many times, and why he owes $300m for loans that he personally guaranteed, which comes due in four years.

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Also: Trump is bad at fraud. Like, if you're going to claim that your daughter is a "consultant" to your company in order to funnel millions to her to generate bogus tax rebates, it helps if you don't make videos where she declares herself to be an executive in that company.

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Which is why the IRS is about to clobber him for $72m in tax fraud, which will come out to about $100m with penalties and interest.

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So, tldr: he's bad at business, he's bad at fraud, he makes money only when he's not able to wrest control of a subsidiary from smart people, and now he owes about $400m.

And he's broke.

The end.

eof/