Trump ‘The Art of the Comeback’ writes ‘I’m worth minus 9 Million’

Oh this was really hard to figure out Trump and his taxes. Just read the book and the Donald talks about being in the negative. Real spiffy for the NY Times getting that plain manila envelope in the mail with his tax returns and figuring out he probably wrote it off thus no taxes. Clever.Very clever.

Trump
The Art of the Comeback

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By DONALD J. TRUMP with KATE BOHNER

Times Books

One day, while walking down Fifth Avenue, hand in hand with Marla, I pointed across the street to a man holding a cup and with a Seeing Eye dog. I asked, “Do you know who that is?”

Marla said to me: “Yes, Donald. He’s a beggar. Isn’t it too bad? He looks so sad!”

I said, “You’re right. He’s a beggar, but he’s worth about $900 million more than me.” She looked at me and said, “What do you mean, Donald? How could he possibly be worth $900 million more than you?”

I said, “Let’s assume he’s worth nothing (only from the standpoint of dollars)–I’m worth minus $900 million.”

This was an interesting period of time, because as I told the story I realized in my own mind that what I was saying was true. I also began to realize that I had better get back to work!

My net worth had been in the billions. By the spring of 1990 I was deeply in the red; my empire was hemorrhaging value. When the Supreme Court upheld the retroactivity provisions in 1992, I knew that not only for me, but for my colleagues as well, prospects were grim. Even for the awesome Olympia & York, headed by the powerful Reichmann family, the future looked bleak.

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