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Trump's possible 18-year tax break has burned the internet down

Trending topics are the new outrage.

Peter Allen Clark

on October 1, 2016

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Donald Trump's difficult week, full of debate misses and softcore pornography, hit a crescendo Saturday night when The New York Times revealed the Republican nominee may not have paid taxes for nearly two decades.

After political rivals and allies have called for months for Trump to release his tax returns, three pages of his 1995 tax return were anonymously sent to Times reporter Susanne Craig (care of Trump Tower, apparently).

The pages reportedly indicate the real estate mogul claimed a $916 million loss that year, "from the financial wreckage he left behind in the early 1990s through mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos, his ill-fated foray into the airline business and his ill-timed purchase of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan."

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Though the pages give limited tax information, with the help of Trump's former accountant Jack Mitnick, the Times suggested such an enormous claimed loss could allow the reality television star to "cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income over an 18-year period."

If these documents are valid, Trump may not have paid any income taxes for almost 20 years. And it would all be legal, but that's another story.

Even though the hour was late, the internet awoke, ceased all partying and brought its opinions to bear on the newly released information.

#LastTimeTrumpPaidTaxes

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Immediately, the hashtag #LastTimeTrumpPaidTaxes sprang to the top of Twitter's trending topics as people gleefully took it back to that strange time called the mid-'90s.

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Who is the mole?

And then there was the fact the leaked documents appeared to have Trump Tower as their return address (although the sender could simply have written the address for LOLs, of course).

This sent many cyber-sleuths off trying to uncover the hidden mole who released the papers to the public.

Trump's children were naturally the first suspects. Poor Barron got the worst of it -- after all, he's all about the cyber.

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Incredible skills

Shortly after the Times story went live, the Trump campaign released a statement. It claimed the documents were illegally procured and that the nominee remains a model of business acumen who has shown "incredible skills" in his dealings.

Furthermore, it states that "Mr. Trump knows the tax code far better than anyone who has ever run for President and his is the only one that knows how to fix it."

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Hillary Clinton's team, for their part, did not waste time pointing out the "colossal nature" of Trump's business failures.

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The tax documents also came on the same night Trump implied Hillary Clinton may have cheated on her husband, former President Bill Clinton. So there's that.

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Remember: Only 38 days until this campaign is over.

Topics Donald Trump Elections Hillary Clinton

Peter Allen Clark

I have done neat stuff all over these United States from sailing lessons on the Puget Sound to motorcycle maintenance on the backroads of upstate New York. My professional experience extends from newspaper reporting in the mountains of Eastern Oregon to fixing espresso machines throughout Kentucky. I also have kept a cat alive for 10 years.