1000 Leona Helmsleys, Writ Small

The not-for-profit news org Pro Publica has come into IRS records for some of the wealthiest people in America, and it turns out that the richest people in the United States pay little or no taxes.  They are claiming that they do not know the identity of their source.)

This has gotten notice from major mainstream news sources.

There has been some push-back from the usual suspects demanding, while the usual douche bags are demanding an aggressive criminal investigation.  Said douche bags include US Attorney General Merrick Garland.  (Multiple officials in the Biden administration has given every indication that it will extend the Jihad against whistle-blowers to the IRS leaker.)

We find a similar pattern in the tax filings of private equity (PE) firms, with the things like the carried interest loophole, the "fee waiver," an under resourced IRS, and a revolving door of senior officials.

I kind of filed this under, "Same old, Same old," until Pro Publica revealed that one of the leading candidates for Manhattan District Attorney was mentioned in the files as having paid little or no taxes on her husband's multi-million dollar pay.

So, if these files become public, there is a pretty good chance that one of the go to sources for crappy candidates who stand for nothing that is routinely tapped by the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment), hedge fund managers, and PE types, who have lots of money, and spend profligately to get elected.

Now, it the people who are looking to cash in will have to go though a trove of tax data to make sure that THEY are not on that list:

The leading candidate to take over the investigation relating to former President Donald Trump’s taxes paid virtually no federal income taxes in four of six recent years.

Tali Farhadian Weinstein, who is married to hedge fund manager Boaz Weinstein, is running for Manhattan district attorney in the Democratic primary, in which early voting has already begun. She and her husband reported income as high as $107 million in 2011, and she recently donated $8.2 million to her campaign — more than her seven Democratic rivals have raised in total.

But in 2017, according to a trove of tax data obtained by ProPublica, she and her husband paid no federal income tax. In 2015 and 2013, they also paid no federal income tax. In 2014, she and her husband paid $6,584.

………

In two of the years in which the Weinsteins paid no federal income taxes, they reported negative income, losses that appear to be driven by the volatile performance of Boaz Weinstein’s hedge fund. They also claimed and received a refundable tax credit — a total of $5,000 over those two years — designed to help middle- and lower-income families with the costs of raising children.

In the other two years in which they paid little or no federal income taxes, they reported adjusted gross income of about a million dollars each year. They were able to reduce their income tax bill in those years by using a variety of deductions.

There’s no indication the Weinsteins did anything illegal.

That last bit is the REAL problem.

The fact that these sort of shenanigans are completely legal is a national embarrassment.