CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

The Trump Tax Man Goeth

Photo by Markus Spiske

If you are filling a scrapbook with little odds and ends on the end of the American democratic experiment, you might want to save an entire album for the Trump family’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which the Trump administration is close to settling with its patron Trump.

The origin of the lawsuit is a 2019 leak (by an IRS outside contractor) to the New York Times of certain Trump tax returns over a fifteen-year period.

The leaked filing showed that in many years—in theory, when Trump was raking in billions, according to his own chest-thumping on TV—Trump reported losses or paid only $750 (seven hundred and fifty dollars) in income tax.

As in law there is no such thing as a humiliation clause for unfrocked billionaires, Trump was forced to sue in 2026 on the grounds that he and his family (he’s bringing his sons and the family business to the after-party) had suffered $10 billion in damages over the leaked tax returns—although it takes quite a lot of hoop-jumping to prove that someone paying $750 in income tax incurred losses in the 10-digit range.

The magic of the lawsuit is that both the Department of Justice, which was served with the Trump lawsuit, and the Internal Revenue Service (part of the Treasury Department), both report to Trump, and heading both departments are Trump placemen.

To resolve this matter, all the Justice Department would have to do is claim that the Trump lawsuit is unwinnable (from the government’s side) and “settle” the case with the president for the demanded $10 billion.

After all, both cabinet officers serve at the pleasure of the president, and nothing would give President Trump more pleasure than to shake down the U.S. government for a cool ten billion.

That the Trump lawsuit is frivolous is beside........

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