Trump’s Taxes are a False Issue

My View by Jim Yacavone

(September 30, 2016)

In the first debate Clinton suggested that Trump has not released his tax returns because they show he is not as charitable or wealthy as he claims or, perhaps, because he did not pay taxes. To the latter allegation Trump replied, “That makes me smart.”

Clinton supporters take this as a tacit admission that Trump’s returns will reveal he did not have any income tax liability for the years in question. They feign shock and dismay and act like this makes Trump a bad citizen and a traitor to the country. Not only is that monumental hogwash, but if the Clinton faithful actually believe the test of good citizenship is whether you pay income tax you don’t owe it demonstrates they truly are idiots. To paraphrase the Donald, that makes them not smart. 

Paying income tax is not a voluntary act like tithing or making charitable contributions. Government forces us to pay income tax under threat of criminal sanctions and severe penalties. Most citizens, while they grouse about taxes and gross government waste, understand that good citizens are obligated to pay all the income tax required under our tax laws. Unless they are absolute morons, they also understand that they have no legal, moral or ethical obligation to pay one penny more than the law requires. And if they can avoid paying income tax by taking advantage of lawful and allowable deductions, write-offs and loopholes they are indeed smart. Apparently the Dems have difficulty with this concept if their rhetoric is to be believed.

The Clinton camp made a big deal of sitting billionaire Mark Cuban in the front row of the debate. Cuban is a brilliant businessman. Do the Democrats think that his accountants and lawyers don’t take advantage of every tax loophole and deduction possible to reduce his tax liability to the maximum extent? You can bet your bippy that the Clintons took advantage of every lawful deduction and loophole when they filed their personal returns. You can bet two bippies that all the Clinton fanatics who are gnashing and wailing over the idea that Trump may not have had to pay income tax used all available deductions when they filed their own income tax returns. You can bet three bippies that the Wall Street interests that Clinton has sucked up to all these years don’t pay any more taxes than they have to.

Anyone who doesn’t try to minimize his or her income tax liability truly is just plain stupid. After all, it’s your money. You earned it, not the government.

And that may illustrate a basic philosophical difference between conservatives and deluded Clinton backers who think that Trump did something wrong if he managed to avoid paying income tax. Liberals have this perverted idea that government is the source of our life, liberty and happiness—that we somehow owe government for the right to work and live in society. When Obama said if you own a business, you didn’t build it he was expressing a core liberal belief that places government above individual freedom and initiative. And Clinton is of the same ilk. Remember her saying, “Don’t let anyone tell you that corporations and businesses create jobs?” Obama and Clinton later walked back their remarks but a Freudian slip is a Freudian slip which reveals deeply held inner beliefs.

One more thing to consider if Trump managed to lawfully avoid having to pay income tax—government makes the rules, and it is no crime to take advantage of those rules to avoid paying more tax than you owe. If there’s something wrong with the simple solution is to change the rules—something our politicians seem loath to do. Think about it.

That’s my view. What’s yours?