Hacker Group Publishes Donald Trump’s Tax Returns-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
The hacker group Anonymous reportedly hacked into IRS records and released tax documents that Donald Trump has refused to release that shows he paid $0 in income tax.
The Truth:
A fake news website is behind rumors that Anonymous has released Donald Trump’s tax returns.
Free Wood Post published the story under the headline “Anonymous Hacks IRS Database — Publishes Trump’s Tax Records.” The site reported that Anonymous recovered 12 years of Trump’s tax returns and released them to “hundreds of top websites” that published and then removed them within minutes:
Trump campaign spokeswoman Katrina Pierson stated last week that “there has been no year in which Trump paid zero taxes”. In 2012, this was true. He earned $37,746,530, far less that the $400+ million he claims. His final tax burden? Trump didn’t pay $0 in taxes, he actually received a tax refund of $7,832,224. That’s right, he cashed in a 7.8-million dollar tax refund. Recently, Trump stated that “I fight like hell to pay as little as possible.” So, how did Trump “earn” a tax refund? According to his return, he had approximately $37,743,000 in itemized deductions. In addition to massive business write-offs for legal fees relating to his fraudulent Trump “University” and fraudulent real estate transactions, Trump had other more unusual deductions.
Trump’s deductions ranged from $118,923 for “Tribble Hair Services” to a $3.8 million dollar write-off for “Anal Bleaching” both listed as an “image expense.” He also made numerous charitable contributions to places like The National Association for the Advancement of White Men and the Trump Fund which provides financial and emotional assistance to wealthy men going through divorce. The Trump family also paid salaries to their numerous employees including, eight chauffeurs, two yacht captains, four pilots for their private jets, two professional dog walkers, one full-time “Tribble stylist” and perhaps most unusual of all a “live-in Hillary Clinton Impressionist” supposedly used for “debate prep”. Of course given the sordid details revealed about Trump’s “Favorite Fantasy Scenario” in the Ashley Madison hack, he likely has other uses for the unfortunate impressionist.
Within days, the story had been shared more than 37,000 times on Facebook. Taken out of contect, many believed that the report was true — but that’s not the case.
Free Wood Post clearly identifies itself as “satire,” which means that it’s stories aren’t factual. According to its disclaimer:
Free Wood Post is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within FreeWoodPost.com are fiction, and presumably fake news.
Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental, except for all references to politicians and/or celebrities, in which case they are based on real people, but still based almost entirely in fiction.
In reality, Trump has not released his tax returns to the public. Just before the Free Wood Post story appeared, however, it was reported that the last time Trump made an income tax return public, in 1981, he had paid $0 to the federal government in income taxes.