Lies, Tax Fraud, and more Lies

Why students should care about Trump's tax returns.

By Kendra Martinez, Staff Writer

Being a public school, Samo receives the majority of its funding through taxpayer dollars and donations. Meaning, your parents’ taxpayer dollars help fund Samo. What if I told you your parents probably helped fund our school more than the leader of the United States? On Sept. 27, “The New York Times” released an article revealing President Donald Trump’s tax returns from the last 15 years. According to the article, Trump paid $750 in taxes his first year of presidency and the year after that. For reference, the average American pays $15,322 in federal income taxes annually. As the President and magnificent businessman he claims to be, this report reflects terribly on Trump’s morals and integrity. 

Many people were disappointed when this report was released, but they weren’t surprised. Left-wing politicians and supporters have been asking Trump to release his tax returns since 2016. Whenever he was asked to release his returns, Trump responded with excuses and made promises about releasing them at a later time. In this year’s first presidential debate, Trump claimed to have paid “millions of dollars in taxes” and said “The New York Times” report was false. However, he failed to mention the specific years and amounts he paid. Some people might speculate that Trump believes he has paid a large amount of taxes because he pays sales taxes and his hotels pay taxes. However, everyone pays sales taxes and his hotel is separate from him, as it is a business and businesses pay their own taxes. Additionally, in his town hall meeting on Thursday, he kept saying his returns were under an audit and thats why he cannot release them. However, the IRS has said the audit does not prevent Trump from being able to show us the tax returns.

 “You’ll see as soon as it’s finished,” Trump said in regards to releasing his tax returns. 

Now, he’s had the past four years to release these tax returns and we still haven’t seen them. If he has in fact paid “millions of dollars in taxes”, he could’ve released these documents back in 2016 and avoided the repercussions. The lack of compliance from him and his team clearly shows he is trying to hide his mistakes and does not care about the American people. Because if he did, he would not take advantage of the loopholes in the system and would pay his fair share in taxes. 

No matter where you stand on the political spectrum or who you support, you cannot deny that this is a major slap in the face to our country. Trump has undermined and exploited the system, which in the end is supposed to be for the benefit of the people and he’s done this for several years. Like most millionaires, he found loopholes and took advantage of them in order to get out of paying taxes for ten out of the last 15 years. Trump reported major business loss and this paved the way for his tax avoidance. However, the write-offs included with these losses are for hair stylists, property taxes on family estate, etc. These write-offs do seem more like personal expenses than a business’. This should be alarming to all of us for two reasons. One, as president he ought to play fairly in his system and as a magnificent businessman, he should not be doing this badly. Cheating in a system he is supposed to represent isn’t only wrong, but he is taking funds away from the people. Theoretically speaking, more money would go into the economy and our communities would be able to provide more resources for their residents if more wealthy citizens paid the proper amount of taxes. Because of his actions, Trump is representing the top 1 percent of people who evade taxes the same way he does. The top 1 percent being the millionaires and billionaires who get tax breaks when they could make major differences in communities. Some people have speculated that Trump’s businesses are simply doing bad and that’s why he is unable to pay the proper amount of taxes. However, if this is the case, it means Trump is a terrible businessman because he has reported major losses for several years. Seeing as many people support him because of his business success, in hopes, he will apply that to the economy, this report should make them question that.

Art by Shoshana Greenspan ('21)

Not only has Trump exploited our system, but he continues to lie about doing so. The American people deserve an honest president or at least someone who can say, “No I don’t want to release my tax returns.” Had he been upfront and honest from the beginning, maybe more people would have held some respect for him. He very clearly has bizarre morals if he thinks lying continuously to the face of the people he is supposed to represent is acceptable. Furthermore, his integrity is nonexistent seeing as he continues to jump through loopholes and not pay taxes. Seeing as many seniors can vote in this election, this report should have helped them see clearly the type of person Trump is. Hopefully, they will use this information and vote him out. 

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