Former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani owes more than half a million dollars in federal taxes and faces a lien on a property he owns in Florida, according to a recent court filing.

The unpaid balance of $549,435.26 in federal taxes for 2021 was revealed in an August notice that said the IRS was placing a lien on Giuliani’s property in Palm Beach, Florida.

The Daily Mail first reported Giuliani’s tax debt, which comes as he faces mounting legal woes, and fees.

Last month, Giuliani’s former lawyers sued him over allegations that he had not paid legal fees that they said amounted to $1.36 million. Giuliani responded to the lawsuit by saying the dollar amount being sought was excessive.

  • shutuuplegs@reddthat.com
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    9 months ago

    You are right and wrong.

    If you make probably around 200k or less, your taxes are pretty simple. You have some very basic filings like a 1080 and some mortgage items. Maybe you have some income from stock sales.

    That’s about it. (Ignoring retirement and other still basic and easily calculated tax affecting numbers.).

    If you get it wrong, they have all of the paperwork and can easily flag what doesn’t match.

    If you are making way more, you probably have businesses and a weird intermingling of finances. Our tax structure just says “tell us what you think” and they take it as fact unless it is checked out. A businesses tax filing might be hundreds of pages long with tons of “I think x is value y and it depreciated by z amount” which of course is hugely subjective and not objective. And that’s the least complex part.

    To audit those numbers can take hundreds of hours to get to understand what’s going on and where to go. We need to close loopholes and remove the subjectivity of our taxes for the rich and to dedicate resources in the irs to just this complex type tax auditing.

    Not to mention remove the need for a 1080 or any other basic taxable form. Go to a website, see what it says you owe, view the calculation and give us the ability to challenge it if it’s wrong with simple paperwork.

    • VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
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      9 months ago

      You’re absolute right, but what was I wrong about? You basically elaborated on what I said and then added a common sense solution at the end 🤷

      Both the loopholes and the unnecessarily complicated process are put there on purpose though, by rich people who don’t want to pay taxes and corporations like Intuit (TurboTax) H&R Block and TaxAct Holdings who want people to have no reasonable alternative to paying them to do it.

      • pips@lemmy.film
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        9 months ago

        Because it’s not about the amount of money or the ability to fight it, it’s about the way the income or other wealth was generated. The IRS audits the rich all the time, it’s just easier to have someone fix a mistake or catch tax evasion/fraud when the underlying income/wealth is only generated from a few sources. If you make 7 figures because that’s your salary, it’s still pretty easy to audit you.

        • VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
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          9 months ago

          Because it’s not about the amount of money or the ability to fight it, it’s about the way the income or other wealth was generated

          Above a certain threshold of wealth is ONLY achievable through complex and/or shady means and it’s the norm way below that threshold.

          Rich people generate wealth in more and different ways than regular people.

          The IRS audits the rich all the time

          Nope. They audit poor and middle class people MUCH more, even proportionately.

          If you make 7 figures because that’s your salary, it’s still pretty easy to audit you.

          Nobody with a 7 figure salary doesn’t own stock and/or property too. That’s how the system works: the more money you have, the more opportunities you have to get more and the more eagerly your bank and/or accountant urges you to invest.

      • shutuuplegs@reddthat.com
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        9 months ago

        The difficulty is not intentional. It is knee jerk reactions that were poorly implemented from years and years of built up changes to how money is made (or hidden). Compounded on more and more with law over law. Just Don’t attribute malice to that which can be considered incompetence.

        As for being wrong, that was too harsh. I don’t think the irs ignores the rich per se, but it’s just really difficult to quickly understand if they are following the rules. The time investment is very high and they don’t have dedicated people. It isn’t intentional though so your fix is either fund with a rule the funding only goes to six figure tax bill collection or fix the laws to make the information objective only and non complex while controlling loopholes .