The questions about Donald Trump's taxes are too numerous to count.
How can a self-claimed successful businessman lose $916 million in one year?
How can a guy who wants to "make America great again" have the consummate gall not to pay taxes for 18 years?
How can this man look at voters every day and and tell them he's for them when he's made them pay for his manipulation and incompetence?
Sure, he'd say we've paid for his genius because not paying taxes "makes me smart," as he boasted when Hillary Clinton prodded him about not releasing his tax returns.
But all it really shows is what he's shown us all along: He expects us to allow him to continue being an elitist, entitled blowhard as, year after year, the rest of us pony up our tax dollars to offset him keeping his.
The Republican presidential nominee hasn't released his tax returns (as every other presidential contender has since 1972) because he knows that for any thinking person, there's no way to avoid paying your country forward and still look red, white and blue.
But on Sunday, that was rectified. Not by Trump, but by the New York Times in a Sunday bombshell article that made public the first pages of three state income tax filings by Trump in 1995 in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The three documents arrived by snail mail at The Times with a postmark showing they were sent from New York City and the return address was Trump Tower. The tax preparer, now 80 and living in Florida, said the preparer's signature was his - as was the anomaly in the way large numbers appeared on the New York tax document.
He explained that a flaw in the tax software program he used prevented him from being able to print a nine-figure loss on Mr. Trump's New York return. He said he had to use his typewriter to manually add two of the numbers, thus explaining why the first two digits appeared to be in a different font and misaligned.
"This is legit," the tax preparer told Times reporters.
What's not legit is Donald Trump's hypocrisy.
Roads that lead to Trump's real estate developments are built and maintained with tax dollars. Air traffic controllers who keep planes from colliding with the Trump jet are paid from taxes. But Trump's attitude about taxes seems to be a bit like his attitude about charitable giving. He prefers OPM - other people's money.
Peter Kiernan, a former U.S. Marine and founder of the Ivy League Veterans Council, started a crowdfunding project that would donate millions to veterans' charities if Donald Trump makes his taxes public by the date of the third debate. Kiernan, a veteran of Afghanistan, was motivated to action by Trump's claim that not paying taxes makes him "smart."
"When I was in Afghanistan, taxes paid for my body armor. Taxes paid for my weapons and my ammunition. Taxes paid for the emergency life flights that my buddies got flown out on when they lost their legs. Taxes pay for Gold Star families, for the 14 children I know today without fathers," Kiernan told MSNBC.
"More than that, they support cops and firefighters, every public service that this nation offers. Where I come from leaders are meant to lead by example. And you inspire [others] to follow you. With Trump's free ride on the political process and the system, that sets a dangerous precedent as a leader," Kiernan added.
Linked-In co-founder and billionaire Reid Hoffman has said he will match the total amount Keirnan raises with a five-times match, up to $5 million. Donors don't have to pay on the pledge unless Trump - Trump himself - releases his tax returns. It seems unlikely that Trump will do this.
What's more, it seems unlikely, despite some Trump campaign claims, that Trump has any intention of changing the tax system that has allowed him to use us.
Trump is calling for a significant decrease in taxes on the wealthy while Clinton is calling for a significant increase.
Experts say Trump's plan would not affect the practice identified in the Times story that has generated the most attention - Trump's ability to claim a massive business loss and use it to reduce his personal tax bill for an extended period. The Republican presidential nominee manipulated his 18-year tax dodge with the financial wreckage he left behind in the early 1990s with his mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos, his ill-fated foray into the airline business and his ill-timed purchase of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.
Under Trump's new tax plan for the nation, he and the rich would keep still more of their money.
Clinton's proposed tax code changes would create a fairer system and boost the economy by distributing more gains to middle and lower income Americans. The changes she proposes would cost her and her family money.
Trump, who is not smart, really thinks the American people are not smart. And, just as he did for 18 years, he wants to make us his mark yet again.