Larry Correia is an Asset, so Pay Taxes on Him!
So as I walk through life, from time to time, roughly four or five times an hour, I become aware of some additional fraud, falsehood, lie, lie by omission, lie by commission, white lie, black lie, or absurd suppression, misdirection, or elliptical ambiguity being perpetrated by the news media on the American public.
Today as I went down to the corner store for a cup of coffee, as is my habit every morn, I was told many a blaring, blazing, buffeting, bludgeoning headline being issued from the Mouth of Sauron. It seems some ten years or so of tax returns of President Trump, God-emperor of transawesomemania, Lord of Maga, and Man of Orangeness, had been illegally leaked to the public, a felony, and the News Media had a pre-prepared and coordinated response.
Indeed, I saw dozens and dozens of headlines from nigh a hundred papers or sources, and each and every one, one and all, each man jack of them, covered the same talking points in the same way, using the same language, all in glassy eyed unison as perfect as little boys bouncing balls on the sidewalks of planet Kamazotz in A WRINKLE IN TIME.
They all said Trump underpaid his taxes, or somehow cheated or gamed the system, when, in fact, he was paying millions in advance.
All the “tells” or signs that these remarks were half truths and whole lies, cynically meant to deceive the low-information voter who reads headlines and whose eyes glaze over during conversations involving fiscal technicalities, were present and abundant.
But who could explain, with gusto and zeal, the stinking and foetid and mephitic falsehoods of chthonic profundity piled to skyscraper height of bovine excreted material involved in the propaganda writings of the mainstream ministry of truth?
Dares any voice speak so clear?
And I thought to myself, thought I: Larry Correia, the Mountain Who Writes, is an accountant. Surely he sees through these lies.
I was so confident that he would have written a column fisking the arrant nonsense being spread with manure shovels about Mr. Trump and his taxes, that it was with a gust of jovial laughter that I sat at my desk, opened his website, and read:
NO, YOU IDIOTS. THAT’S NOT HOW TAXES WORK. – AN ACCOUNTANT’S GUIDE TO WHY YOU ARE A GULLIBLE MORON
Mr Correia’s famed and far-feared pen, sharper than a serpent’s tooth, draws blood in this fashion:
… this morning my feed is filled with people who don’t know shit about taxes retweeting the stupid opinions of other morons who also don’t know shit about taxes. This is just as annoying as last week when these same idiots all suddenly became Constitutional Scholars. Or the month before that when they were all experts on use of force laws and police tactics. Or the month before that when they suddenly got their epidemiology degrees from the University of Internet and turned into infectious disease experts.
Holy shit, you Dunning-Krugerands are annoying. Of course the comments are all about the “morality” of paying your “fair share”. Which isn’t how any of this works in real life. Just stop it with your vapid hot takes already. You clearly have a child-like grasp of a complex topic, and your words are making America dumber.
Such a fisking is like hearing the bass voice from the MORTAL KOMBAT game declare flawless victory: finish him!
Ah! Let praises rise to heaven that this generation has been blessed with a man so bald and gigantic, blessed with such back-alley brawling spirit of truth.
Let the triphammers and morningstar flails of truth batter and crush the skulls of the two-tongued lie-weasels!
Read on!
Mr. Correia explains that Mr. Trump has “...a room full of accountants, and their leader is probably a grizzled old CPA with an eye patch and a raven who sits on his shoulder. The raven also has an eye patch and an accounting degree.
Someone in the comments on Instapundit posted an image of the Master Accountant, Lord of the Gallows, on his way to work.
Mr. Correia continues:
This man has wrestled bears, and he’s going to take advantage of every tax break in the US Code for his client, and do so gleefully, knowing that many of those laws were signed by Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
On the other side, you know damned good and well that the IRS has sent their most fearsome auditor against him. This man sold his soul to the devil, and then fined the devil for failing to list that soul as a depreciable asset.
Mr. Correia is an accountant and a man, so he can not only mansplain it to you, he can taxplain it. Myself, I am an attorney as well as an emotionless alien from 40 Eridani, allowing me both to lawsplain it, and vulcanplain:
Speaking as an lawyer, I can most solemnly assure any reader that the things called “loopholes” in the tax code are carefully crafted exceptions meant to encourage certain behaviors, discourage others, and maximize revenue in the long term.
This includes things like allowing charitable giving to be deducted from income, which the government does, frankly, to encourage charitable giving.
There is no such thing as a loophole. This is a metaphor for the intricacies of the tax code. The tax code is intricate because you are taxing human productive behavior, and human productive behavior is complex, and reacts to incentives. Were the tax code simple, it would fall with undue harshness on certain activities and segments of the economy, such as philanthropists, not in the greater good of society to discourage.
Now, it may well be that some of these intricacies of the tax code are meant merely to favor the political class and their scions. If so, the blame for that falls squarely on the established political class, that is, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Barry Obama, and all the greasemonkeys and wrenchjockies of their political machine. An amateur millionaire like Trump did not write the tax code, he merely hires accountants to make sure he pays what he owes, and no more.
But Larry Correia will explain more, and more clearly, than I.
But I can add one legal note: it is a Federal crime to have unauthorized access to someone’s tax records, or to disclose those same tax records, leaving to a fine of up to $250,000 or a prison sentence of up to five years, or both, per count.
The New York Times may not be liable for receiving the stolen information from the felon, but if they paid, encouraged, or arranged the felon to commit the crime, they are.
Also, for the record, I have heard that the New York Times paid zero federal income tax in 2017 on earnings of $111 million.
Also, for the record, some kind soul reminded me of this legal dictum:
Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes.
JUDGE LEARNED HAND Gregory v. Helvering, 69 F.2d 809, 810 (2d Cir. 1934)
Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one’s affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant.
JUDGE LEARNED HAND Commissioner v. Newman, 159 F.2d 848, 851 (2d Cir. 1947) – dissenting opinion
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
