Donald Trump tax return coverage shows that the Bible is obsolete?

by philg

My Facebook friends are excited by looking at Donald Trump’s 2005 IRS 1040 form. Does this show the obsolescence of the Bible in our modern age? Exodus says “You shall not covet,” but is silent on the subject of obsessing over someone else’s tax returns.

[As long as we’re on the subject of Exodus, note that “slavery” in Ancient Egypt was being subject to a 20% tax.]

Separately, I looked at Facebook and find it interesting how many inferences people are drawing and how confident they are in those inferences. Friends are saying that these two pages prove that the Trumpenfuhrer was not a billionaire in 2005 and also that they show that today’s King Donald I was heavily in debt (too bad there isn’t a line for “how much do you owe to Russians”). Given that 2005 was a boom year for building and investing in real estate, some of which expenditures would be deductible in the year incurred, I don’t understand what is surprising about returns that show both a lot of income (by my standards at least!) and a lot of deductions, netting out at $50 million.

What jumps out at me is the $6,299 in qualified dividends (what you get when you’re a shareholder in a typical U.S. public company). The S&P 500 had a dividend yield of 1.76 percent in 2005 (source). That implies a taxable public equities portfolio of about $360,000. Donald Trump was 59 years old in 2005. Instead of slowing down and reducing risk by parking money in a Vanguard index fund, this 59-year-old guy may have had all of his assets in projects and enterprises in which he was actively involved (a little tough to say because of the $67 million in Schedule E income from partnerships, real estate rent, etc.; there is no way to know from this form how much of this came from enterprises in which Trump had no active role).

Finally, does this show that we should be taking up a collection for the impoverished Mr. Trump? The adjusted gross income was $48.6 million. If we assume that Trump was like an S&P 500 member at the time and this $48.6 million is the 1.76 percent dividend, the corresponding asset base (net worth) would be roughly $2.8 billion in 2005. The S&P was at about 1,230 during 2005 and is currently at 2,365. So if Trump’s assets appreciated at the same rate as the S&P and he didn’t give away anything to his children or grandchildren during the intervening 12 years, he would have a net worth today of $5.4 billion (Forbes estimates $3.7 billion).

14 thoughts on “Donald Trump tax return coverage shows that the Bible is obsolete?”

  1. I thought the same thing; people are really bad at math. (Oddly, it seems, especially when money is involved)

  2. Perhaps you should jump to reading Christ’ words in the NEW TESTAMENT: Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.

    Reviewing tax returns is hardly covetous. Verifying how much is rendered to Caesar is part of determining the veracity of a not so righteous leader’s claims.

  3. Seems like he is very rich and paid a lot of taxes. I think this is more fake news hype.

  4. Phil,
    If releasing President Trump’s eleven year-old Federal 1040 was an attempt at smearing Trump, I think it failed. I’m ever more impressed by him now.
    Off topic, I find it difficult to look at Rachel Maddow without recalling a photo I once saw of a giraffe. Why is that??

  5. The whole point is that he is proposing rules that would eliminate $31M of the $38.5M taxes he paid. Sounds like a really sweet deal for him and a big fuck you the middle class.

  6. Seems more and more obvious that the tax return was leaked by Trump as a way to shift attention from the associations with Russia and the total flop of the healthcare bill. Release some non-damaging info on a year on which perhaps he paid more tax than usual. Seemed to work, at least for some useful idiots.

    Fortunately, Trump cannot hold back and he soon finds himself engulfed in some Twitter or media storm. The latest scandal is the second block of his muslim ban. Bye bye distraction on the tax returns…

  7. As long as we’re on the subject of Exodus, note that “slavery” in Ancient Egypt was being subject to a 20% tax

    If you read that somewhere, it would have to be a very poor translation of whatever word the ancient Egyptians used for slavery.

  8. I don’t mind his being rich or playing the IRS. I do mind that he is President of the United States. That needs to be corrected at the first opportunity – Democrats, please quit playing his game and field better candidates in 2018/2020. His base seems pretty rigid, so Dems only need to get more of this righteous anger to the polls. His voters will be there.

  9. Vince #7, it is in Book of Genesis:
    “When all of the livestock had been traded, people willingly sold themselves into slavery to Pharaoh and sold him the ownership of their lands as well (Gen. 47:18-21). … He enacted an enduring law that people return 20 percent of the harvest to Pharaoh. ”
    Guess it reflects on backward nature of Egyptian agriculture and low productivity of its methods. And probably on the fact that people grew more complacent overtime.
    https://www.theologyofwork.org/old-testament/genesis-12-50-and-work/joseph-genesis-372-5026/josephs-successful-management-of-the-food-crisis-genesis-4146-57-4713-26/joseph-relieves-the-poverty-of-egypts-people-genesis-4713-26/
    “

  10. This just in: Oprah leads Trump by 7 points in 2020 polls. I always thought Oprah would be the first celebrity POTUS. (Reagan had become a pol by the time he ran for POTUS). If we can get all those daytime-TV voters to the polls, Trump is toast.

  11. Dean, it appears that you’re correct regarding that Bible passage. However, I still doubt that that was the general understanding of the term back in ancient Egypt. Regardless, twenty-first century Americans, upon hearing the word slavery, will probably think of slavery as it was practiced in America in the past, which was a lot worse than 20% taxation. In effect, it’s still a bad translation. It appears that it was also the people paying the 20% tax who called themselves slaves. It wasn’t the pharaoh who was referring to the slaves that he recently acquired.

  12. other Donald:

    You forget that Trump became famous for being for reality TV show before getting into politics a year and a half ago.

  14. Vince #11, in ancient Hebrew same word is used for two modern English words ‘slave’ and ’employee’. In many case this makes sense in English too.

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