The Gist

How Bad Is the Trump Tax Leak?

Tax expert Philip Hackney on Trump’s billion-dollar write-down.

A protester hands out “Trump Ducks” outside the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington in September.

Jim Watson/Getty Images

Listen to Episode 590 of Slate’s The Gist:

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In The Gist, what can we really find out from the Donald Trump tax leak? As Philip Hackney argues, not a lot. Hackney is a professor of tax law at Louisiana State University and formerly worked as counsel at the Internal Revenue Service. He says that Trump’s returns don’t indicate any wrongdoing per se. But there’s lots of ways he might have used the tax system to his advantage to save money.

For the Spiel, even more on Trump, taxes, and hypocrisy.

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Email: thegist@slate.com
Twitter: @slategist