It is perhaps well to remember that whilst the cronyism, venality and often industrial scale corruption of national governments is well known in history, here in Australia we appear to hold the quaint notion that as a democracy we will not be led by the likes of a Pahlavi, Marcos or Putin. Men who sought not only authoritarian power but also to enrich themselves from the public purse and their nation’s resources.
But does the example of the former Morrison Government and what is happening in the U.S. right now not make one wonder if we here in Australia need to clearly define limits to the powers held by a prime minister and, perhaps also require all members of any federal Cabinet or outer ministry to present their tax returns to the Parliament for formal audit every year they are in government?
For that matter, perhaps it is well past time that members of a federal government are denied access to taxpayer funds to defray court ordered financial penalties & legal costs in relation to defamation or sexual harassment proceedings.
Both Morrison & Trump ignored democratic principles and processes whenever they chose, with Trump’s action being perhaps the more egregious. However, one has to wonder if profiteering from public office was something both national governments did – if not to the same scale at least with the same frequency.
In Australia we will never know because we have such weak mechanisms to monitor or prevent such things. The Parliament often being reluctant to police members' specific pecuniary interests, the Constitution not shutting the door firmly enough on profiting from the Crown and the Register of Members’ Interests being nothing more than a risible fig leaf covering suspected dodgy trusts and self-managed super funds.
Consider former U.S. president Donald Trump’s financial affairs and ask yourselves: Could some of the prime ministers and/or ministers in office between September 2013 and May 2022 have conducted their own financial affairs in a similar manner?
To call the business structure that Donald John Trump built – carried with him into the White House and back out again - ‘Byzantine’ is being kind.
It appears to be a maze of est. 500 inter-related companies, subsidiaries, partnerships, trusts, overseas bank accounts and possibly shells, potentially designed to literally push financial bullshite uphill until a business income loss or tax credit could be established on paper for personal benefit.
During his first presidential election campaign in 2016 Trump self-reported net wealth of almost US$10 billion with debts of at least US$265 million – thought at the time to be achieved by an exaggeration of property and brand values and that his net wealth would be closer to est. US$4.1 billion. There were calls to show his tax return. He promised to reveal his tax returns but didn’t.
As president he continued to falsely complained that his tax affairs were under almost continuous Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audit so it was impossible for him to release them.
Once the nation voted him out of office Trump went to the U.S. Supreme Court in an attempt to stop the release of his tax returns for the years 2015 through to 2020. A legal battle he lost in TRUMP, DONALD J., ET AL. V. COMM. ON WAYS AND MEANS, ET AL on 22 November 2022.
He was so successful in his resistance up until then that only one incomplete mandatory IRS audit occurred during his presidency - being ordered in September 2019 for the tax year 2016, but never completed and appears to have been quietly abandoned. Trump appointee as IRS Commissioner, Charles P. Rettig, reportedly excused the then president from the mandatory auditing process sometime during his tenure as commissioner.
On 16 June 2021 the U.S. Congress House Committee of Ways and Means wrote to the Treasury Secretary seeking details of the required annual mandatory audits of Trump’s personal tax returns during his presidency, unaware of the true state of affairs.
This letter requested all audit materials from 2015 to 2020 with particular reference to:
whether an IRS examination of the returns took place and the present status of the audits, the applicable statutes of limitations, and the issues considered:
1. The Federal income tax returns of Donald J. Trump (Form 1040),
2. The Federal income tax returns of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust,
3. The Federal income tax returns of DJT Holdings LLC (Form 1065),
4. The Federal income tax returns of DJT Holdings Managing Member LLC (Form 1120-S),
5. The Federal income tax returns of DTTM Operations LLC (Form 1065),
6. The Federal income tax returns of DTTM Operations Managing Member Corp (Form 1120-S),
7. The Federal income tax returns of LFB Acquisitions Corp (Form 1120-S),
8. The Federal income tax returns of LFB Acquisition LLC (Form 1065), and
9. The Federal income tax returns of Lamington Farm Club, LLC d/b/a Trump National Golf Club-Bedminster (Form 1120-S).
Trump’s personal tax returns were joint filings with his wife Melania and listed one son as a dependent. He stated his main source of income was derived from “Management Services”, “Aviation”, “Speaking Engagements”, “Real Estate”, “Golf”, “Ice Skating Rink”, and “Restaurant”.
For a man who repeatedly bragged about his business acumen and wealth in the billions, his 2015 personal and business tax returns indicated that he carried forward business loses of US$105.15 million and he and his wife declared a 2015 calendar year joint negative income of $31.7 million leaving a nominal tax bill of $0.
So by 2015 either he was fast approaching the need for yet another strategic corporate bankruptcy or he had applied the most ‘creative’ accountancy when dealing with the U.S. IRS for that year and the following five years.
Either way, once in the Oval Office Trump appears to have continued to follow his own unique tax return template so that by 2020 he was still paying low tax or no tax – apparently due in part to sizeable business income losses at two of the nine entities whose tax returns were requested by the House Committee on Ways and Means – DJT Holdings Managing Member LLC and DTTM Operations LLC. It is interesting to note that 2020 was also a year devoid of charitable donations by Mr. & Ms. Trump and, it seems that there is some suspicion that previous charitable donation figures may be largely unsupported by appropriate documentation.
Page 2 of the House Committee on Ways and Means Final Report spells out some specific accounting concerns:
• Charitable contributions—whether the 2015 conservation easement deduction of $21 million and other large donations reported on the Schedule A were supported by required substantiation.
• Verification of Net Operating Loss Carryover Schedule—whether the amount of net operating loss carryover in 2015 of $105,157,825 and future years was proper.
• Unreimbursed partnership/S corporation expenses—whether the terms of the partnership agreements supported unreimbursed expense deductions totaling $27 million over six years.
• Related party loans—whether loans made to the former President’s children are loans or disguised gifts that could trigger gift tax.
• Cost of goods sold deductions by DJT Holdings—whether these deductions of about $126.5 million over five years is appropriate when it is not clear what DJT Holdings is selling from the face of the return.
• LFB Acquisition LLC—whether there is any support for changes in the management fees and general and administrative expenses of LFB Acquisition that were significantly higher in 2017 ($1.9 million and $2.8 million, respectively) than 2016 ($750,000 and $549,000, respectively) and 2018 ($707,000 and $570,000, respectively).
In fact when it comes to actually paying personal income tax Donald and Melania Trump paid US$641,951 tax in 2015, $US$750 in 2016, $US$750 in 2017, US$999,466 in 2018, US$133,445 in 2019 and US$0 in 2020, claiming a refund of US$5,468,593.
Then there is the matter of the two shell companies set up by Trump’s then personal attorney Michael Cohen in 2016, Resolution Consultants LLC and Essential Consultants LLC. The former allegedly created for the US$120,000 purchase and then suppression of a story by former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal about her involvement with Trump and the latter created to pay US$130,000 to former adult-film star Stephanie Clifford, professionally known as Stormy Daniels.
It has been reported that Trump had claimed the second personal expense of $130,000 as a business expense though whether he did that in his 2016 tax returns or later I have been unable to ascertain.
It is noted that, in the three years from 2017 to 2019 Trump donated the annual US$400 million presidential salary “solely for public purposes” in order to get a back a combined total of US$1,200 million as a deduction on his tax bills, according to The Washington Post.
As for an overview of Trump’s business practices…..
To quote Page 5 of the House Committee on Ways and Means’ 20 December 2022 Final Report:
Numerous investigative reports have revealed that the former President, through the complex arrangements of his personal and business finances, has engaged in aggressive tax strategies and decades-long tax avoidance schemes, including taking a questionable $916 million deduction, using a grantor trust to control assets, manipulating tax code provisions pertaining to real estate taxes, and extensively using pass-through entities. Media reports have also revealed that he benefited from massive conservation easements, and that certain of his golf courses failed to properly account for wages paid to employees, raising questions about compliance with payroll and Social Security tax laws. As President, he took pride in “brilliantly” maneuvering the tax laws to his personal benefit. Even as he was championing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the former President referred to the tax code as “riddled with loopholes” for “special interests—including myself.”
BACKGROUND
The House Committee on Ways and Means “REPORT ON THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE'S MANDATORY AUDIT PROGRAM UNDER THE PRIOR ADMINISTRATION (2017-2020” Final Report of 20 December 2022 can be found at:
On 30 December 2022 the House Committee on Ways and Means released a zip file containing all Donald John Trump’s personal & business tax returns via Attachment E. Links to the full range of documents the Committee has released can be found at the bottom of this document at:
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