Ultimate Humiliation? Obama and Biden Paid Millions More in Taxes than Trump

So, now we know. Trump isn’t even trying to justify how little he paid in taxes. Additionally, the numbers are very low, to begin with, for a guy who reported being worth $10 billion to Forbes and claimed he lived in the most expensive condo in the world in Manhattan. Trump used depreciation very, very liberally to report income of negative numbers. So, it turns out that the billionaire didn’t just pay a lower rate (As Buffer complains, he wants his rate to be higher than his secretary’s). He paid a lower amount.

Indeed, Trump paid a lower amount of taxes than Both Biden and Obama. (If we extrapolate some of Obama’s income. Here is Trump’s statement that paying zero, or close to it, is a heroic “duty” almost. From Newsweek:

On Friday, Trump said the thousands of pages of documents show “how proudly successful I have been and how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive for creating thousands of jobs and magnificent structures and enterprises.“

Uh, no. Wrong. Depreciation doesn’t “create” jobs.” Depreciation is nothing more than the recognition that the value of real property (sometimes) and some personal property reduces some income as applied to money made.

Example: You will see a lot of doctors, lawyers, engineers, and CEOs, driving massive, expensive pick-up trucks. Most of them do so because they use the vehicle to work (get to and from), and vehicles over a certain weight are treated like farm equipment, and the depreciation can offset income. It’s not a big offset unless it’s a four-million-dollar combine. But it sure doesn’t create more jobs or incentive anything. It was meant to help farmers.

Biden, meanwhile, paid $4.1 million in the same period. Prior to 2017, Biden net worth was near $1 million as a career politician, and he paid 23% or about $80,000. But then his income jumped:

In the following years, Biden’s taxes remained stable, with the exception of a two-year period in which his income increased significantly, from over $396,000 in 2016 to over $11 million in 2017 and over $4.5 million in 2018. The majority of this income in 2017 came from royalties, likely due to the publication of his bestselling memoir “Promise Me, Dad” that year. As a result, his taxes also increased significantly, to over $3.7 million in 2017 and over $1.5 million in 2018. In 2019, his income decreased to less than $1 million, and he paid nearly $300,000 in taxes. In 2020, Biden reported a total income of $607,336 and paid a net tax of over $157,000.

It is certainly true that Trump, whose worth is tied up mostly in real estate, will have greater depreciation and can be “cash poor” at times. But still, all those golf courses, all those condos, bringing in cash, to say nothing of the $80,000 per day for red MAGA hats in the 2016 campaign, all personal income (as opposed to PAC money) and the “billionaire” paid:

Using an inquiry into the IRS and its policy to audit presidents and vice presidents, Democrats were able to obtain returns from 2015 to 2020.

The data released in last week’s reports showed that Trump paid $1.1 in federal income taxes during his first three years as president, but that he paid no taxes in 2020 as he reported a loss of $4.8 million.

So, at least by what Trump reported (Remember, he’s in real trouble in New York for claiming such low income as compared to values shown to banks for lower rates on loans. But during the same period, overall, Trump lost money and paid less than Biden, who jumped.

And Obama? You can get a breakdown of Obama’s net worth here. His worth shot up after his second book prior to running for president and was worth in the seven-figure range. His investments continued to make money through the presidency when Obama was locked in at $400,000 per annum, but then in 2017, Obama’s net worth shot up $70 million due to book deals and speaking fees, along with a Netflix deal. (This is not counting Michelle’s income which is also significant but nowhere near Barack’s). The paragraph estimates that Obama will be worth $240 million during his post-presidency period. It seems very very safe to say that Obama paid far more taxes than Biden and Trump combined. It is also safe to say that Obama will likely be the richest post-president for some time (not counting Trump’s pre-presidency income, which – again, is so devalued that…

And so there it is. Trump claimed to Forbes that he was worth $10 billion (according to his own report, and net worth is different than income, but come on), and he paid less in taxes than Obama and Biden. But we’re starting to get an idea as to why New York referred Trump to the IRS because his taxes are infinitely lower than that expected of someone with all those resorts, all those hotels (Some just branding for a fee, no depreciation).

Trump is likely personally humiliated. But he had to put a good spin on it, so his massive losses pumped money into the economy as somewhat heroic. Makes sense, right? No, and that’s why we’ll hear much more in the future.
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[email protected], @JasonMiciak, SUBSTACK: Democrats Poised to Dominate for Two Decades Depending on Handling 2023 Properly.