“IT’S about time that this country had somebody running it that has an idea about money,” Donald Trump said during the presidential debate on September 26th. Yet Mr Trump’s finances are the murkiest of any candidate in memory. He makes the Clintons look like paragons, and also makes a mockery of disclosure rules for candidates.
There are four problems. First, Mr Trump’s business is baffling. There is no holding company with accounts, and no major part of it has been publicly listed for long. Mr Trump has made a 104-page declaration of wealth to the electoral authorities. But the rules governing these forms are hopeless—they do not distinguish between revenue and profit, and any asset worth over $50m need not have its precise value specified. Mr Trump says he is worth $10 billion. An analysis by The Economist in February suggested $4 billion, but without audited accounts, who knows? The same forms show that Hillary Clinton is worth $11m-53m. This appears to exclude property and, perhaps, some of Bill’s assets.
Second, Mr Trump has not made public his tax returns. During the debate he again claimed that he is unable to because the...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/2dxcv6e
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