this post was submitted on 23 May 2026
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politics

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[–] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 6 points 17 hours ago

It seems like right now the corruption in the Supreme Court is what's really fucking up the US.

If the corrupt individuals were removed, I imagine we might see corrections to the deterioration of the country.

[–] NottaLottaOcelot@lemmy.ca 11 points 21 hours ago

I think the train carrying trust in the American tax system left the station a looooong time ago….

[–] bold_atlas@lemmy.world 5 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

LOOK AT ME EXPERTS! I DECLARE THAT I AM IMMUNE TO BULLETS, FIRE, EVIL EYE AND CHILD SUPPORT PAYMENT DEADLINES!

OOOOOO BEWARE EXPERTS! BE SCARED AND SHOCKED!

[–] Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 6 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

There was trust in the tax system?

[–] LadyButterfly@reddthat.com 4 points 19 hours ago

Or just the system in general

[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 5 points 21 hours ago

Just the tax system you say?

[–] GirthBrooksPLO@lemmy.world 3 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (1 children)

Its funny how he thinks he and his pedo buddies think they are just going to get to walk away with all the shit they stole and a ruling from an institution they debased is going to protect them.

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 1 points 18 hours ago

The liberals after this will protect him

[–] jballs@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 day ago

The IRS probe revolved around whether Trump doubled-dipped in cutting his taxes, according to a 2024 report by The New York Times and ProPublica — specifically whether he used the same losses from his Chicago skyscraper to cut them twice in future filings, a big no-no.

What the fuck kind of shit ass reporting is that? "A big no-no"? What are we, fucking toddlers? How about highly illegal and a felony deserving of prison time?

[–] Etterra@discuss.online 7 points 1 day ago

Oh don't worry, I already had no trust in the tax system.

[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 20 points 1 day ago

The taxation system has been a joke for a long time. When the wealthy get to essentially ignore their responsibilities to society, there isn't much reason for that society to continue hosting them. Our elites, are simply parasites.

[–] NekoKoneko@lemmy.world 59 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

Regardless of "immunity" (which itself likely would be stricken by a court since it is forward-looking and contradicts the law), Todd Blanche, Donald Trump, and anyone else involved in this need go to jail over this "settlement."

The "settlement" is built on the fiction that Trump has a viable claim, when in fact Todd Blanche and others at the DOJ were given an IRS memo that put them on reasonable notice that it was barred by the statute of limitations. By agreeing to the settlement when Trump is on both sides of the case despite the fact that there isn't a viable claim, Trump, Blanche and all other approving parties are impairing the lawful function of the DOJ, to defraud the IRS, and violating this specific criminal statute (if not many others).

https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-923-18-usc-371-conspiracy-defraud-us

The statute is broad enough in its terms to include any conspiracy for the purpose of impairing, obstructing or defeating the lawful function of any department of government . . . (A)ny conspiracy which is calculated to obstruct or impair its efficiency and destroy the value of its operation and reports as fair, impartial and reasonably accurate, would be to defraud the United States by depriving it of its lawful right and duty of promulgating or diffusing the information so officially acquired in the way and at the time required by law or departmental regulation.

18 U.S.C. § 371—Conspiracy to Defraud the United States

In summary, those activities which courts have held defraud the United States under 18 U.S.C. § 371 affect the government in at least one of three ways:

  1. They cheat the government out of money or property;
  2. They interfere or obstruct legitimate Government activity; or
  3. They make wrongful use of a governmental instrumentality.

Trump and Blanche are doing all three.

[–] northernlights@lemmy.today 7 points 1 day ago

Now that's a solid comment

[–] 4am@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 day ago

Literally his entire presidency has been an 18 USC 371 violation

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I personally know someone who got life for 18 usc 371 (and it was just money) , so here's hoping

[–] cockmushroom@reddthat.com 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

To what extent would this sort of thing make them liable for treason?

[–] fodor@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 day ago

We talk about treason casually meaning things that are fundamentally bad for the country. But legally, it's not the same thing as an attempt to permanently evade taxes.

Another interesting point is that essentially Trump pushing for tax immunity is an explicit admission that he did break the law repeatedly, and that means it's also likely that he broke state laws repeatedly, and that would be a really exciting thing for state tax auditors to look into. Because he can't get Federal immunity for that.

[–] NekoKoneko@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

Well, treason is defined in the constitution as "only [] levying War against [the United States], or [] adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

Arguably a fund set up that is meant to funnel money to J6 insurrectionists or to support right-wing militia groups for a new insurrection is treasonous.

[–] SGGeorwell@lemmy.world 67 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ok - no one has trust in the tax system, my guy. We know it’s mangled beyond recognition.

[–] Juan_de_Silentio@lemmy.world 54 points 1 day ago (2 children)

CPA here who does taxes for hedge funds and PE firms. The tax code is an absolute joke that hurts the middle class and lets the rich get away with paying almost nothing. We all knew that already, just confirming that it is true.

[–] FenrirIII@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Time to burn this fucker down

[–] LemmyFeed@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Any tips for the middle class that can help reduce the size of the dick fucking us?

[–] Juan_de_Silentio@lemmy.world 3 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

btsax covers it pretty well in his response. If you have a side business where you can show losses most of the time punctuated by an occasional year of gains, that's really the best strategy. If you have losses in 3 out of any 5 consecutive tax years the business gets downgraded to a hobby and you can no longer use the losses to offset personal income. So if you know accounting tricks to delay or accelerate income you can have 2 years if steeo losses and 3 years of tiny gains for every 5 year period.

[–] btsax@reddthat.com 3 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Any hobby you have where you someone could reasonably assume you could make money at it can be claimed to be a business and used to deduct expenses from your taxes. Since the Trump tax cut of 2017 you don't even need to create a legal structure for that business anymore. You just literally fill out schedule C as a sole proprietor.

"Middle class" landlords do this all the time, since they get rent as income they can deduct all their expenses at Lowes et. al., if you keep a garden in the summer and ever sell your produce, even if it's just one tomato, you can deduct gardening expenses, if you own a boat and take people out on charter you can deduct your boat expenses, etc. (Make sure to follow other laws about this, I don't know where you live and just came up with these off the top of my head.) I have even heard of people starting YouTube cleaning channels to teach people who to clean, and now you can reasonably deduct expenses for your cleaning products.

Also business expenses are "above the line" so this has nothing to do with the standard deduction like charitable donations and mortgage interest do, those are below the line.

Rule of thumb is there's some length of time you can report losses before the IRS comes sniffing around so if you're not filthy rich you may have to deal with an audit, but it's not illegal to try to start a business and not make money. Word on the street is you can lose money running even a casino and deduct those losses too.

This is not legal advice, go look it up on your own and don't do anything some random on the internet says

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 20 hours ago

This only makes sense if you have enough deductions so that it adds up to more than the standard deduction, which I think is like $15k these days

[–] Juan_de_Silentio@lemmy.world 0 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

btsax covers it pretty well in his response. If you have a side business where you can show gains most of the time punctuated by an occasional year of losses, that's really the best strategy. If you have losses in 3 out of any 5 consecutive tax years the business gets downgraded to a hobby and you can no longer use the losses to offset personal income. So if you know accounting tricks to delay or accelerate income you can have 2 years of steep losses and 3 years of tiny gains for every 5 year period.

[–] jonesey71@lemmus.org 14 points 1 day ago (2 children)

No billionaire should ever be audited. They should have their taxes done by a team of IRS agents and then have the taxes owed taken directly from their assets. No fancy accounting loopholes, just a bill of what is owed.

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 1 points 18 hours ago

No billionaire should ever be

[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 4 points 1 day ago

I think that if there is a complete replacement of the economic workings in the USA, part of it would involve how taxes are assessed and collected. For the corporations, they shouldn't be responsible for their book-keeping. Instead, the State and Federal governments jointly undertake this duty, assigning their own personnel.

000

Each quarter of the year, a coin is flipped. Tails, the State government does the IRS duties, and Heads, it is the Federal. Each of these governments respectively cover exactly half of the year's book-keeping, but the timing and personnel is randomized.

This helps mitigate corruption, because it randomizes who is looking at a company's finances. Corruption relies on social trust between thieves to not sell each other out for mutual profit, which requires the thieves to figure out who can be worked with. By constantly replacing who they have to work with, the corporations can't create ideal conditions to become corrupt.

Having the federal and state governments comparing their records also helps keep them from becoming corrupt themselves: They don't want to share the corrupt pie, so all three parties have to agree to be rotten if they want to do shady dealings. That is much harder when there are many loose lips and competing interests to sink ships.

[–] Eternal192@anarchist.nexus 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There was trust in the tax system? Sure pal.

It was one of the more fair and reliable parts of the US government, so long as you knew how to work with the system.

That "so long as you knew how to work with the system", intuit, the bloch brothers, and mister klynveldpeatmarwickgoerdeler (he's south African Dutch but not Afrikaans? I really don't understand accounting) have lobbied very hard, fast, and wet to keep difficult and out of reach for non practitioners

[–] DanceMomsSavedMe@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

TRUST IN THE TAX SYSTEM

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago

Hehe, while I have heard about how the IRS in the US does not have the best reputation, here in Sweden, the tax office is generally considered one of the most trusted institutions by the general population

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I mean, time was an undocumented immigrant could file their taxes with the irs and the irs would fight any other government agency that tried to find out which people who filed their taxes were undocumented, because giving away that information destroyed any incentive any undocumented immigrant has to file tax returns or pay taxes. Not filing their returns, that's just a fine. Giving their informaron to immigration? That's a hell of a lot worse than not filing. Someone logic this out for me, should the irs cooperate with criminal investigations or no? It seems to be a violation of someone's right against self incrimination, but of course I'm sure there's scatus case law saying otherwise.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I'm pretty sure this isn't going to hold up later.

Under the settlement to resolve Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit over the 2018 leak of his tax returns to The New York Times, the U.S. is “forever barred and precluded” from examining or prosecuting Trump, his sons and the Trump Organization’s current tax filings, according to a one-page document released Tuesday. That was quietly added to an original settlement establishing a $1.8 billion fund to compensate people whom Trump thinks were improperly investigated by the government.

[–] NekoKoneko@lemmy.world 21 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

"We are allowed to do unlimited tax fraud, and nobody can investigate us. The DOJ that I control told us we could!"

[–] grue@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

What "later?" Trump will never relinquish power.

[–] chahn.chris@piefed.social 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Bad news for Trump: nothing lasts forever.

[–] krashmo@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

Some things last a lot longer than they should. For example, his miserable existence

[–] Neon_Carnivore@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 day ago

Could? I don't trust a fucking thing from the government anymore.

The country I grew up in is fucking dead.

[–] fodor@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago

Oh look he doesn't have immunity. He said that he has immunity and some people who work for him also said that he has immunity but that's not how the law works. And even if it were how the law works, it's easy enough to change the law.

[–] LordCrom@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If I sue the IRS for 10 Billion, do I get to not pay taxes also?

[–] 14th_cylon@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago

Yes. If you also run your own gestapo that can just snatch people off the street without any consequences, you can do that.

[–] HasturInYellow@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)
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It was gone when it was gutted to prevent audits of rich people and DOGE’s decimation of the agency.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago

No no no, that's impossible. Of course everybody trust the tax system in USA completely. Trust it to favor the rich. And this case will 100% strengthen that trust.

[–] green_goglin@thelemmy.club 6 points 1 day ago

That ship has sailed

[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Chomo Caligula needs to hang

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