What I read today September 29, 2020
The NYT have done an exhaustive study of President Trump’s tax records ($). One number will be the talking point for the next month. The tiny amount of $750 in taxes he paid in 2016, the year he was elected. It could also just be that the huge amount of debt he has outstanding means there’s no income to tax but the scope of his finances are labyrinthine and could make him a threat ($).
It reminds me of an interview with John Malone, founder of Liberty Media, who basically pioneered EBITDA and the concept of valuing businesses on cashflows rather than net income. All which helped to drive focus on reducing corporate taxes.
There’s a big difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion. A real estate developer like Trump would have a lot of familiarity with using different structures to minimise his tax return. Likely accelerated depreciation on properties would take a big chunk off. It’s certainly not illegal. Will it even make any difference to his base or swing voters if they see their president hasn’t really paid any taxes?
Long gone are the days when Jimmy Carter sold his beloved peanut farm to prevent there being any concerns of conflicts of interest.
It’s difficult for us to perceive statistics. One issue is all this COVID testing is throwing up false positives in what is a small incidence rate of the virus. This is the argument made against extending any further lockdown measures. That said it’s clear that the path higher in positive results is a trend that wouldn’t happen solely on the back of false positives.
How to succeed in private banking, or maybe get into a lot of trouble ($).
Uber is allowed to run in London again. ($)
Podcasts are hot. Wondery, a producer of hit podcasts is looking to sell itself for more than $200 million ($).