Vox: Whatever is actually in Trump’s tax returns is worse than what the New York Times says

Here’s the thing I can’t get over about the New York Times’s bombshell story on Donald Trump’s tax returns: they don’t actually know what’s in his tax returns. Look at their headline again. “Donald Trump Tax Records Show He Could Have Avoided Taxes for Nearly Two Decades, The Times Found.”

The word “could” is doing a lot of work there. Reread the first sentence. “Donald J. Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years.”

“Could” is doing all the work there, too. It’s also possible that Trump paid taxes in all of those years! All the Times has is three pages of Trump’s records from 1995. Everything else is informed speculation, extrapolation, and the word “could,” which appears again and again through the article....
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/2/13137604/trump-tax-return