Thread by @smbrnsn

One last thing before I shift to preparing for tomorrow's class: the extensions.

This suggests 2 questions: (1) How (or why) did he get extensions? (2) Why did he pay $1m in taxes and then request a refund? 1/

Question 1 first: you know how April 15th is Tax Day? (Or, rather, other than this bizarro year we're living in it's Tax Day?)

Turns out it's not. Or at least it's not Tax _Filing_ Day. 2/

See, every taxpayer qualifies for an automatic 6-month extension on filing. That is, as long as you send the necessary form to the IRS, you don't have to file your tax return until October 15!

So why does anybody file their tax return on April 15? That takes us to Question 2. 3/

So Question 2: you may not have to file your tax return until October 15 (if you send in the form that gets you an automatic extension), but your taxes are due on April 15.

So irrespective of when you file your return, you need to pay your taxes by April. 4/

Now for normal people (me and, I'm assuming, you), that's not really a big deal. Almost all of the money I earn is wage income from my job. So I can figure out how much I earned on Dec. 31, and my employer will send me a W2 by the end of January. 5/

But wealthy people--people like Trump (or, at least, people like Trump is allegedly)--often own partnership interests. And as I explained in a previous thread, partners pay taxes on their share of partnership income. 6/

https://twitter.com/smbrnsn/status/1310612475814055936?s=20

But partnerships don't always send partners information about their share of partnership income in time for April 15. So on April 15, a partner in a partnership may legitimately not know how much they owe in taxes. 7/

So often they'll pay an estimated tax amount by April 15 and, if they overpaid, request a refund by October 15.

Anyway, this is neither an apologia for nor a condemnation of Trump's taxes; it is, I hope, some context for stuff that seems weird. #TrumpTaxReturns 8/8