From an article by David Cay Johnston at dcreport.org:
Donald Trump knowingly committed dozens of brazen tax frauds during the six years when he ran for office and was President, my analysis of the Congressional report on his tax returns and other documents shows. This explains why he fought all the way to the Supreme Court in a failed effort to keep his tax information secret.
One technique he used at least 26 times between 2015 and 2020 was as simple as it was flagrant. Trump filed sole proprietor reports, known as Schedule C, that showed huge business expenses despite having zero revenue. That created losses which Trump used to offset his income from work and investments, thus lowering his income taxes. Additional Schedule Cs had expenses exactly equal to revenues while only a few showed profits.
Trump knew this was unlawful because he lost two trials over his 1984 income taxes in which he did the exact same thing, a story I broke in June 2016. Both judges, in scathing opinions, ruled that Trump committed civil tax fraud.
www.dcreport.org/...
While tax fraud might seem minor compared to the myriad forms of treason committed by TFG, it’s important to remember that Al Capone was only brought down by tax related crimes. If this is how they put the orange menace behind bars, so be it.
What’s more, this Schedule C scam was just one (or 26) of many other likely tax crimes committed by TFG. According to Johnston, his charitable deductions are sketchy, as were various “loans” to his children. It sounds like TFG’s taxes could put him away for the rest of his life. And there was much rejoicing…
Update 1 8:25pm ET: From DavidCayJohnston (!) in the comments:
This is as close to a slam dunk prosecution for criminal tax fraud as I’ve ever seen in my decades of investigating our tax systems, including all the prosecutions brought after I exposed tax frauds, all but one of which ended with convictions and long prison sentences.