October 06th, 2016

TAX TIDBIT OF THE DAY... Is it possible Trump paid zero in tax?
Yes. Our current tax code favors real estate ventures by full-time professionals who rent and develop properties. Many real estate ventures report tax losses for the years of operation and then have very large gains in the year they sell the property. However a special rule allows real estate investors to re-invest the sale proceeds and delay the taxation until the next building is sold... and there is no limit to how many times you can do this. One strategy is to continuously do this until your death.

If I was preparing Mr. Trump's tax return, these are the strategies that I would suggest to get his tax bill to zero:
1) use prior year net operating loss carryovers from when the real estate business lost money.
2) use repeated 1031 exchange "re-investing" to delay gain taxation... possibly indefinitely until death.
3) sell off capital loss investments to offset capital gains from investments 
4) strategically keep annual income under $75k to pay zero tax on long-term capital gains.
5) investing in tax-free municipal investments (state and county bonds).
6) borrowing money from banks to spend on real estate tax deductions.

Why did Congress create these rules to purposely allow zero taxation? To motivate taxpayers to keep their money in certain segments of the economy... real estate, the stock market and state & local governments.

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