This is Planet Money from NPR.

You read it?

We read it.

I read it.

We are talking about the New York Times article on President Trump's taxes.

The article that said he's paid little to no federal income tax in many, many years

in recent history.

Trump himself has said he is smart for not paying taxes, and clearly he has lots of clever

people working for him to figure out how he can avoid paying taxes.

But also, part of the reason he has paid so little in taxes is you pay taxes on profits.

But according to the New York Times, his business has lost so much money that he often didn't

have to pay any income tax because of the losses.

And when you don't pay income taxes, even if it's because of totally okay and legal exemptions

and deductions or losses or credits in the tax code, what this means is that zero of your

income is going to the US military or to roads or to any of the things that income tax dollars

fund.

Hello and welcome to Planet Money.

I'm Sarah Guantalese.

And I'm Jacob Goldstein.

Today on the show, the unexpected upside of losing a billion dollars.

And also, the wealth managers would vise the ultra rich on just how they can avoid paying

taxes.

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