Literally Everyone Has Paid More Taxes Than Trump

Donald Trump’s paltry tax payments have been revealed, and “regular” people are sharing all the times they shelled out more

ICYMI, The New York Times dropped the bombshell results on Sunday of their extensive investigation into our current president’s tax quagmire. Per their findings, Donald Trump paid only $750 in personal federal income taxes in 2016 (the year he ran for president) and 2017 (his first year as president). He paid no federal income taxes in 10 of the previous 15 years, largely because he reported losing considerably more money than he made.

Not surprisingly, the Internet has many thoughts on the Times’ Trump tax returns revelation. In response, these quote-unquote ordinary people are flooding Twitter to vent their frustration over being more civically and fiscally responsible than the gosh damn “billionaire” president of the United States.

Like this entrepreneur and author… who is nine.

Or other small business owners who didn’t game the system with questionable write-offs:

Then there are the myriad minimum-wage, part-time, and/or student workers who paid more:

Including those in the food and beverage industry, whose fight for a livable wage Trump has lampooned in the past:

Those who paid more also includes people from disenfranchised portions of the population, such as immigrants and inmates — both of whom Trump has openly expressed open contempt for.

Or how about veterans and active members of the military, groups Trump consistently claims to be vested in the best interests of?

And we can’t forget about essential workers, whom we’ve all depended upon to get us through the novel coronavirus pandemic:

Other tweets simply serve to frame Trump’s tax returns in perspective. Like these, which highlight the contrast between the U.S.’s poor healthcare and Trump’s tax loopholes:

Plus some centered on student loans:

Some provided interesting historical context:

But you get the gist, right? Basically, everyone and their brother paid more in federal income tax than Trump. While this should come as a surprise, it doesn’t feel entirely unexpected. After all, in his nearly four years in office, Trump has repeatedly refused to release any details about his returns — a move decidedly out of line with every other president between the years of 1974 and 2012.

Trump has offered various reasons for not releasing his returns, namely that he couldn’t do so while the returns are under audit. However, every tax return filed by a sitting president or vice president since 1977 has been subject to an automatic audit as part of the Internal Revenue Manual’s protocol. And since most every other president and vice president during that time has made their returns public, the choice not to release is clearly personal as opposed to legal.

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/1310551008007852032

By contrast, former POTUS Barack Obama has 16 tax returns on public file. Current Democratic presidential nominee (and former vice president) Joe Biden has 21. Biden’s running mate Kamala Harris? Fifteen. Even Vice President Mike Pence has 10.

The Times secured Trump’s tax information going back more than two decades, which paints a starkly different picture than the successful billionaire businessman image that the POTUS shills.