Donald Trump, the great fraudster

Donald Trump had reason to systematically refuse to honour the political commitment to make his accounts with the Federal Administration public: ten of the last twenty years he paid virtually nothing. In 2016, the year he won the election, he paid $750, the same as in 2018, less than the taxes that a single employee of his many businesses took on.

In the United States, perhaps more than in the vast majority of developed countries, taxes are a permanent concern for citizens. Defrauding the Treasury is a serious crime and many people go to jail for falling into this temptation. It is always said that there are two crimes that a politician cannot commit: lying and defrauding.

President Trump is proven to commit both without flinching. His accounts have just been released and the data are of a truly inconceivable lack of morality and patriotism. Every year he deducts millions of dollars in really implausible concepts, starting with the hundreds of thousands he counts as payment for consultations with his daughter Ivanka or personal expenses inflated by everything imaginable. 

Now, on the eve of the elections, we will have to see how voters react to this new scandal of the president, taking away large sums of money which, as the press columnists argue, are the property of everyone and Trump has stolen them from the nation. Seen from afar, things seem very clear, but American voters do not respond to the parameters that govern democracies, which casts doubt on their impact on the ballot box.

The first face-to-face debate between the two opponents vying for the presidency will take place in the next few hours and the revelations about Trump's income tax fraud favour the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, who will have a very sensitive argument for attacking him. For the time being, Biden can end the debate by increasing his lead in the polls, but it is not certain that he will end up in the polls.

Trump was elected president with almost all the opinion polls against him, which gave him a popularity that is very difficult to explain. American society is very complex and the term of office that is coming to an end brought improvements in the business world, which led to a reduction in unemployment and generated sympathy for the president even among immigrants who feel that they have benefited from the ban on entry that could mean competition.

Nor should it be ruled out that the latent puritanism will be frightened off by the image of the fraudster while at the same time arousing envy and a desire to imitate him. Trump, meanwhile, needs to win the election now more than ever in order to shield himself from justice in the face of such accusations. Some legal experts believe that he could end up being convicted and become the first president to end up behind bars.