Hillary Clinton pounced on Donald Trump at Monday’s presidential debate for saying he would only release his tax returns if she released missing emails from her private server, and speculated that his refusal to release them because he is not as rich or as charitable as he claims.
“You have got to ask yourself why won’t he release his tax returns? And I think there may be a couple of reasons. First, maybe he is not as rich as he says he is. Second, maybe he is not as charitable as he claims to be,” Clinton said. “Third, we don’t know all of his business dealings, but we have been told through investigative reporting that he owes about $650 million to Wall Street and foreign banks.”
She added that the tax returns might also reveal that he didn’t pay federal income taxes.
“I think he is probably not all that enthusiastic about having the rest of our country see what the real reasons are because it must be something really important, even terrible that he is trying to hide,” Clinton said.
Trump earlier in the night said he can’t release his tax returns because he is under IRS audit. (The IRS has said an audit wouldn’t prohibit someone from releasing his or her returns). Trump referred voters to his financial disclosure statement instead.
“And the financial disclosure statement, they don’t give you the tax rate. They don’t give you the details that tax returns would,” Clinton said. “And it just seems to me, that this is something that the American people deserve to see and I have no reason to believe that he is ever going to release his tax returns because there is something he is hiding.”
I’m not watching the debate but this should be a solid body blow
More should be made of the DT’s muttered interjection while Hillary listed possible reasons he’s not releasing his returns. When she said “maybe it would show that he hasn’t paid anything in federal taxes” he says “Smart!”. Later, when he complains that federal tax dollars have been squandered, she says maybe part of the problem is that he (or maybe she said people like him) don’t pay any taxes. His response “I’m sure that would have been squandered too.” (emphasis mine). OK, so this is pretty clear. He is telling us it’s true, he hasn’t paid anything in taxes. And he’s proud of that - it makes him smart.
This is a direct line to his political jugular. All the “little people”? We pay our taxes. Pretty tough to get around it, and lots of us see it as both a civic duty and a moral obligation to society. Are we “stupid”? No, we’re ethical. And we’re carrying you and your “smart” rich buddies on our backs.
Please, Hillary, please don’t let this go. I liked your debate performance. I wish you had gone after him on this, but maybe you didn’t even hear him due to the interrupting nature of his comments. But it was crystal clear to those of us watching.
I also thought it a bit odd that Hill didn’t hit back with the point that peons, like myself, who pay our fair shre in taxes simply don’t get the tax breaks that the uber rich do. And to pay no taxes because one uses laws designed by lawmakers beholden to business people to benefit the rich may be smart, but it’s also despicable.
I didn’t watch the debate – did she state how many years of tax returns she and her husband have released? I’ve forgotten the number, but it is a lot.
I like how he admitted that on his tax returns that are public, he didn’t pay any taxes. He made some rambling soliloquy about how it’s all legal and he was really smart to get away with it. Makes you wonder if he had been paying his taxes all these years maybe the deficit would be significantly lower?