If you’ve seen any major news outlet in the past week I’m sure you’ve seen the buzz about Donald Trump being asked to release copies of his personal tax return to the public. It has now become public that the CPA firm – BKM Sowan Horan LLP was the preparer of the former president’s tax return, the same firm that I worked at during 2020. Timothy Horan was one of the main partners I worked with during my tenure at the firm.


While I won’t comment on if I had any part in the preparation of the return (for client confidentiality’s sake and on this client, probably national security) in this article I’ll walk through some things that I found interesting while reviewing Trump’s return.
Trump’s Income
Wages – Trump reported $393,229 in Wages for 2020 – it looks like he likely did not end up taking only a $1 salary for the year as mentioned, at least in his last year in office.

Social Security Benefits – At 76 years of age, Donald Trump is more than eligible to take social security benefits. It looks like he has chosen to forego the benefits as no income is reported to have been received during 2020 from the SSA. 👍🏻Good on you Trump – choosing not to take anymore from our already overburdened ponzi system.
Other Income
It looks like a majority of the Trump family income was coming from passive and portfolio sources. A whopping $10 million in interest income is seen on line 2b that demonstrates an activity commonly seen among America’s truly wealthy. When the average American thinks they can just “tax the rich” they don’t understand that the truly wealthy in this country are not earning their income from 9-5 employee jobs. On Trump’s income, the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said:
“Under the current system, American workers pay virtually all their tax bills while many top earners avoid paying billions in the taxes they owe by exploiting the system,”
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/3793693-trump-tax-returns-raise-alarms-about-fairness-of-u-s-tax-code/
That’s right Yellen – the only acceptable exploitation of the system is planned annual inflation to steal from the American workers right /s/?
Trump’s Business Losses
Trump’s business losses I found very interesting – besides the massive losses taken on passive K1 interests from various partnerships and S Corps, Trump also reported several schedule C activities at a net loss with little or no income. These schedule C activities are likely just 1099’s received from the various business interests – namely the DJT Aerospace activities which I would guess Trump was using to hold his private Jet activity in a separate legal entity.

Trump’s business deals
Although it is not necessarily true that the name of the LLC is equal to the activities of the entity – it looks like Trump’s empire extends across real estate and activities all over the world with his portion of ownership in Trump towers, hotels and other holdings not exactly defined.

Something that was surprising to me was the amount of active participation Trump has in many of the deals. Many of his larger holdings were considered non-passive which means Trump definitely had his hands full managing these entities along with the role of president at the same time.
Itemized Deductions
Taxes paid – Trump definitely got screwed with the SALT cap at 10k per year. Losing out on 8.5 Million in tax deductions because of the tax law he helped set in place during his presidency.

Charity – Trump made no contributions to charity during 2020. Looks like the Trump family donated several hundred thousand in prior years to veterans and national parks but made no contributions in his late year of office.
Trump Paid Zero Federal Income Taxes
Trump had almost 16 million in losses from business activities to offset the ~11 Million of other mostly portfolio income. A big claim that the layperson will make is that because the businesses show a loss that means he is a “bad businessman”. In reality – Trump’s asset class of choice is real estate, an asset that is well known for producing paper losses. (read our article about using real estate to pay less taxes here: How to become a millionaire tax free through real estate – Booked Financial).
Now we can’t know for sure whether this means all of the former president’s investments are sound, Trump has gone on record talking about his use of real estate to decrease his tax burden.
“former president anointed himself the “king of debt” in 2016 amid frequent criticism of his past bankruptcies, which he called an effective way of keeping his business going.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/trump-king-of-debt-224642
Conclusion
Overall – there isn’t a ton of new information gained from just Trump’s 1040, to know more about Trump as a businessman you would need to see the financials of each of the 30+ entities that he owns.
While its easy to look at the final tax balance and say Trump is evading taxes, it’s important to look at the actual details of the return and view the situation for what it is in reality: a real estate investor taking advantage of the same rules that everyone else also has access to.
If you want to learn more about how to use these strategies to save on your own taxes – get booked for a call with your Booked Financial Rep
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The content of this post is provided as educational information only and is not intended to provide investment or other advice. This material is not to be construed as a recommendation or solicitation to buy or sell any security, financial product, instrument, or to participate in any particular trading strategy.
This blog post was prepared by Dustin Wong in my own personal capacity. The opinions expressed in this video are my own and do not reflect the view of BKM Sowan Horan LLLP or Booked Financial LLC.