Trump’s Taxes: Everything Old Is New Again
https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhu ... n-n2577089
But the thing about this latest “bombshell” is just how old the information is.
Here is a headline from 2016: “Donald Trump Acknowledges Not Paying Federal Income Taxes for Years.” Here’s another headline from 2018: “Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches From His Father.” They’re both basically the same stories, and they’re both from the New York Times. You could almost forgive the people at the Times for not reading the Times, but 2 of the 3 “reporters” on this year’s version of the story wrote the 2018 version of the story.
What is it? To put it in the most basic of terms, since we’re dealing with complex tax laws and sums of money most of us don’t have, is this: If you’re a business owner, you can roll over excess taxes paid in one year to cover future taxes in another future year. By the same measure, you can spread losses out over multiple years too. This lowers your tax burden in future tax years but does not change your overall tax liability.
If that doesn’t make sense, think of it like this: If you had $20,000 in income taxes withheld one year but only owed $10,000, you’d be due a $10,000 refund. You can choose not to take that refund and let the IRS keep it against your taxes the following year. If, in that following year, you end up owing $10,000 again, but had nothing withheld, rather than having to cut a check, you simply use the $10,000 the IRS already has from you to cover it. You’ve technically paid “nothing” in taxes that year, but you’ve really already paid that money. In the current year, you didn’t cut a check to the IRS that year, but you did pay what you owed