Donald Trump has dropped one little breadcrumb for the American public: his 1995 tax returns. Why did it take him so long to release just one year, and why did he pick that particular year? It’s obvious that he believes his devastating losses of almost a billion dollars in 1995 amount to him being a genius. He chose that year so he could boast about what he did to unload massive amounts of personal debt. Although what he did was totally legal, it still made his debt someone else’s problem.
Over the weekend, it was the New York Times that released Trump’s 1995 tax return. Ironically, Trump was just mere weeks away from hitting bankruptcy, but this particular year during Clinton’s presidency was a time of economic prosperity. Trump’s first move to avoid going totally underwater was to share sells of his once private Plaza casino to a new, publicly traded company, Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts. Ten million shares were sold at $14 a share, but the company stood to make $155 million from the rest of the shares that were sold, which by the way, were junk bonds.
After the dust settled from that transaction, the new company had profited around $300 million, and it began settling Trump’s private debts with that money. One of those debts was the $39.5 million that he owed Chemical Bank for the acquisition of a Manhattan property. Once that was squared away, he was now in the position to buy back his Trump Regency hotel, which he lost a few years earlier, for $60 million. He did a shifting of debt in this case too. Whatever he owed, he just placed the debt on the new company’s balance. Sneaky guy…
Trump needed even more money and property the following year. So, he started selling shares from the new company and sold $1.1 billion in junk bonds. That money went to pay off more of his personal debts. Plus, he bought the Trump Taj Mahal and the Trump Castle, which is now named Trump Marina. This, in effect, shifted his debt from his pocket to the shareholders’ pockets.
What’s more, Trump’s new company paled in comparison to its competitors and lost money throughout the coming years. Still, Trump was paid $45 million up until 2009 when he was finally pushed out of the business. Even Trump’s CEO was found to be a kleptomaniac and was arrested for multiple felonies.
Even on the back of Trump Casinos declaring 3 more bankruptcies, Trump considered swindling all the the parties involved out of all of their money throughout the years a success. His most recent failure was the Trump Taj Mahal closing down this past September. With all of the losses and bankruptcies, how can this be a success? Do Americans really want him handling America’s business like he did his own?