March 05, 2017
Donald Trump’s business empire appears to be an infinite cesspool of corruption, with his unethical practices continuing into his presidency. Given such a target rich environment for real news stories, it is difficult to see why the NYT would devote space and resources to pursuing a major non-story. The paper apparently thinks that it is some sort of scandal that Trump accepted energy efficiency tax credits for some of his buildings, since he opposes the tax credits and is committed to eliminating them.
Sorry, that makes zero sense. People take advantage all the time of provisions in the tax code they think are wrong. Why shouldn’t they?
Warren Buffett has famously complained that it is ridiculous that he can pay a lower tax rate than his secretary, based on the fact that most of his income is taxed at the 20 percent capital gains rate rather than the 25 percent marginal tax rate on ordinary income that his secretary is presumably paying. In spite of making this complaint, Mr. Buffett still opts to take advantage of the lower rate on capital gains.
Like many other economists, I think the mortgage interest deduction in its current form is terrible policy. Nonetheless, we all (or the homeowners among us) use the mortgage interest deduction on our taxes.
It’s difficult to see any hypocrisy in following the rules as written, even if one thinks the rules should be changed. This is just a lazy piece on the NYT’s part, it should be spending its time reporting real scandals. There is no shortage in this category in the Trump administration.
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