Kelly Bullis: A look at Donald Trump’s tax returns

Over the years, we’ve enjoyed reviewing the president’s and presidential candidate’s tax returns. Finally we got hold of Donald Trump (2015-2020). It’s a very interesting look into the life of a businessman, especially a real estate investor.

Here is some information we have collected. (I’ll focus on the 2015 comeback, the last before he became president.)

He and Melania filed Married Filing Joint with a dependent, Baron. Very little salary income ($14,141) Instead, he has a number of single-member LLCs that are all reported under 26 C of the various Schedules. Some are different planes. The major has almost $3 million in gross revenue. Some management services businesses. One for his media acting income. Several different entities of speech engagement. One is called “Trump Golf Acquisitions, LLC” Not much revenue at that.

Remember his story buying a skating rink in Manhattan? This grossed over $9 million and ended up with an operating loss of over $1.2 million. The restaurant venture, which grossed $4.8 million, ended up with a loss of $368,000. (There was $1.9 million in depreciation expense, so it actually had a positive cash flow.) It had a small operation as a mortgage broker. One for managing his Chicago operation, one for managing his Las Vegas property, one for managing his Phoenix operations and another for managing his golf courses. Net income for all his Program Cs combined was a loss of $599,000.

He had about $9 million in interest income, another $1.7 million in dividend income. $35 million in capital gain income (mostly from mutual fund investments) and another $6.6 million in other income. He even had $77,000 in taxable pension income. There was a $7.8 million loss from his various rentals and royalty activities, and over 540 business investments that provided him with Schedule K-1 for his share of income to report.

Finally, he had a discontinued business and net operating losses of $77 million carried over from prior tax years, which wiped out all of his federal taxable income.

But wait, he still paid a tax! $2.1 million in alternative minimum tax. $1.5 million in net Obamacare investment tax. He also paid $5.1 million in state income tax.

One last interesting article that popped up right away. He signed on behalf of Melania. He must have had an authorization for this. We see it quite often with our high-income clients. Most of the time, one is out of town and the other has to sign important documents. I bet Melania has one that lets her sign for it too.

Have you heard? Psalm 49:12 says, “But a man, despite his wealth, does not stand. He is like animals that disappear.”

Kelly Bullis is a Certified Public Accountant in Carson City. Contact him at 882-4459. On the web at BullisAndCo.com. Also on Facebook.