Talk:Tax returns of Donald Trump/Archive 1

No mention that the President is not legally required to release his returns

I am not a Trump supporter on any level, far from it, but I came here looking for information on the legal requirement of a candidate to release their returns, and all I found were claims that it was tradition, and that this President’s was subpoenaed by Ways and Means. As a matter of course, however, it is not a requirement to run for President or assume the office. I had to find this out elsewhere. Opinions abound that the President should release his returns, but the the lack of a law requiring this as a matter of course is really the predominant issue. Instead, we get entry after entry re-iterating opinion. Were this such an important act, why has legislation not been passed stating the requirement? Few things of overreaching importance are left to simple tradition. This is why the USA’s legal code spans volumes. I don’t think an intellectually honest person could read this article and conclude that it was neutral. Rather, I’m somewhat shocked that it was permitted to exist in this state. Not a shining example of Wikipedia’s scholarship. I’ve also been around long enough to know that an article this biased will not allow corrections to stand, and therefore won’t won’t invest the time to do so. I’m simply entering my dissent for the record. Opie8 (talk) 17:15, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There are rules on conflict of interest, and tax returns are one way to verify one is in compliance. Gah4 (talk) 02:23, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think Wikipedia should be taken as a reliable source for legal requirements, or anything else for that matter. That being said, there is no current requirement that the President, or a candidate for President, release their returns. I believe California recently tried to impose one for ballot access, and it was overturned at the state court level. Outside of legal requirement, you have to go back to Gerald Ford to find a candidate who did not. Thats probably citable and if so, probably encyclopedic. Rklahn (talk) 05:24, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The non-requirement is now explained in the intro. -- Beland (talk) 00:19, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Content about his returns in many articles

The bulk appears to be here: Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign#Refusal to release tax returns. I suggest moving most of it into this article. Thoughts? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 05:55, 5 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Anna Frodesiak: no objection, can't see any reason why not as long as a summary is left there. --DannyS712 (talk) 06:01, 5 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Done. I'm sorry, I added the content in a bit of a rush to avoid an edit conflict. It is a bit of a mess and could use some arranging. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 06:20, 5 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Anna Frodesiak: no problem. We should work on expanding Tax returns of Donald Trump#Tax March, but I need to hop off soon - the article will probably be very different when I get back. --DannyS712 (talk) 06:29, 5 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your good edits, DannyS712. I think I'll walk away from the article. I'm not much interested in Trump or taxes. I just thought the article was needed considering there were bits and pieces in a number of different articles. I just wanted to centralize the thing and give visitors one-stop shopping. I'm sure the article will get great page views and lots of improving edits from the community. Many thanks again. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 06:37, 5 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Anna Frodesiak: No problem. I'm not as interested in taxes either, but there is definitely enough coverage to warrant an article. Maybe even a DYK? --DannyS712 (talk) 06:40, 5 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DannyS712. I doubt a DYK would be approved in this case. The subject is way too hot. Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 06:43, 5 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

With an eye on improving...

In the "As a candidate thread" there is the sentence...Trump said he did not plan to release his returns before the 2016 election, a promise he kept. Not meaning to cause strife but a plan is not a promise. The add-on "...a promise he kept..." just strikes me as a convoluted construction that is not needed. ―Buster7 ☎ 22:25, 6 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Done by IP editor―Buster7 ☎ 18:30, 10 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Details about some of his returns

I was reading this. I cannot access NYT, but it refers to this article and inheriting a lot of money from his father. Should that be added to the article?

Another NYT article says that his 1995 tax returns revealed that he lost a lot of money and so potentially gets him out of paying taxes for the followig 20 years. Should that be added?

I mean, there is little about his actual tax returns in the article. Maybe a section should be started about that. Thoughts? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:30, 6 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Anna Frodesiak: the article you couldn't access is on archive.org - [1]. Does that help? --DannyS712 (talk) 00:35, 6 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately that site is also blocked here in China. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:49, 6 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Anna Frodesiak: Oh (I thought it was because of the GDPR, not the GFW) - I can read through it later, but I think some of the details should be added. --DannyS712 (talk) 00:50, 6 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

New Tax Return Information by the New York Times

See the article here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/05/07/us/politics/donald-trump-taxes.html. What are your thoughts on how to incorporate this new reporting? Rmehtany (talk) 02:11, 8 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a RSS version of the article: http://ftr.fivefilters.org/makefulltextfeed.php?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2Finteractive%2F2019%2F05%2F07%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fdonald-trump-taxes.html. Rmehtany (talk) 02:15, 8 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

American Citizens Tax Returns Are Not Kept Secret

Stating that President Trump is keeping his tax returns secret is a way of making it look like he his hiding something, and that is not a neutral point of view. The neutral point of view would be President Trump wants to keep his tax returns "private". I would appreciate if the wording was changed.

I understand many of the wiki editors are still upset Hillary lost and they hate President Trump and will do everything they can to smear him but the facts are facts and nobody's tax return are secret. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.52.62.50 (talk) 15:10, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You're not helping your credibility with your last remark. But in any case, "secret" is accurate; the definition of secret is "something that is kept or meant to be kept unknown or unseen by others." And that language is used by a variety of sources, for example this WSJ article ("President Trump's long-secret tax returns") and for example this NJ.com article ("Trump’s Justice Department says the president can keep his tax returns secret"). Neutrality^talk 20:12, 2 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Supreme Court review delay, add?

The Supreme Court will delay oral arguments over concerns about the ongoing SARS-2 pandemic. The court was scheduled to hear the March 31 argument over Trump’s attempts to keep Congress and a New York prosecutor from seeing his tax returns and other financial documents.

X1\ (talk) 06:21, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Who has received/ seen them?

I think the article needs a section indicating who has seen/successfully obtained the returns. It appears that some of the cases have run their course and multiple parties who presumably or certainly had his returns lost. But it’s not clear whether they were actually obtained. We need sources, and I have no idea whether it’s been reported on. --50.201.195.170 (talk) 18:58, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I did a major overhaul of the intro to clarify this. -- Beland (talk) 01:52, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

court froze lawsuit, since related to McGahn/Exec branch subpoena lawsuit, add?

U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden froze a House lawsuit seeking to enforce a subpoena for six years of Trump’s federal tax records until an appeals court rules on whether Congress, in a separate case related to Trump’s former White House counsel Donald McGahn, can sue to compel executive branch officials to testify. The House sued the administration in July after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin refused to comply with a subpoena for Trump’s business and tax records issued in May.

U.S. judge freezes House lawsuit seeking President Trump's IRS tax records WaPo March 20, 2020

X1\ (talk) 00:24, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Pronoun

can you please fix the grammatical typo from "their" tax returns to "his" tax returns? there has not been a female president yet, besides this is a conflict as their is a non-gender determining pronoun, the correct usage if female president and male is "his or her" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.190.48.106 (talk)

As it's referring to "presidents", the use of plural "their" is correct. Capewearer (talk) 07:29, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And even if it wasn't, in the case of a joint return, which would be usual, it would still be their. Is there a suggestion that they file separately? Gah4 (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism in 2nd sentence

It should be not "In September 2020, The New York Times obtained more than two decades of data from Trump's personal and business tax returns", but "He released his Financial disclosure report", it is obvious from cites. 91.78.221.238 (talk) 02:16, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

what? 2601:1C0:4500:BFD0:A9B0:759F:5CCB:1D8F (talk) 02:40, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Here, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tax_returns_of_Donald_Trump&diff=980686505&oldid=978632298 User:Neutrality, please fix your vandalism imidiatelly by self-reverting. You destroyed the citations, so fix it. 91.78.221.238 (talk) 03:58, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No clue what you are talking about. Financial disclosure report is not particularly relevant here, either. This is an article about his tax returns. Neutrality^talk 04:00, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/16/us-ethics-office-releases-trumps-financial-disclosure-239649 and https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/18/us/politics/trump-financial-disclosure.html are about only financial disclosure report. You orphaned those citations, also there is no consensus on removing this info, it was used by Trump on the 2016 debates to say you do not need my tax returns. I vote no for deletion. 91.78.221.238 (talk) 04:06, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the superseded cites. As for what Trump said in the 2016 debate, I fail to see why that would establish relevance for the very first paragraph, since this is an article about his tax returns, not his mandatory financial disclosures. We could certainly include material cited to the the NY Times article, which says that Trump's mandatory annual financial disclosures, "which he has pointed to as evidence of his mastery of a flourishing, and immensely profitable, business universe ... offer a distorted picture of his financial state, since they simply report revenue, not profit. In 2018, for example, Mr. Trump announced in his disclosure that he had made at least $434.9 million. The tax records deliver a very different portrait of his bottom line: $47.4 million in losses." Neutrality^talk 04:13, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am not the user "Neutrality". I have not edited this article. Why are you addressing me as someone else? Are you Wiki-stalk-ing me? 2601:1C0:4500:BFD0:A9B0:759F:5CCB:1D8F (talk) 04:14, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

semi-protected edit request

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

The article falsely claims that the New York Times HAS the tax returns. And yet, the truth is they CLAIM they do. As usual the NYT makes bald claim that cannot be taken as face value. And since this article, is perhaps from the Times itself it needs to be scrutinized for lying.

So, there is a huge difference here, and is the reason for Wikipedia existence. It should not be used to promote the already shameless propaganda of the New York Times, anti-Trump lies.

Like Trump CLAIMS he can't release them because of audit when, actually he can, as the IRS says there is not any rule that he can't, right? Also, sign your comments. Persistent Corvid (talk) 23:18, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not done Section lacks a complete and specific description of the request

Lead

I've made a bold edit to the lead but I still feel it's quite long and goes into undue detail on specific state laws and specific legal proceedings, but I'm not sure how to condense it best right now and I'm running off at this time so I figured I'd post here - if anyone has comments please leave them, otherwise when I get time (hopefully tomorrow) I'll make another edit to try and condense the lead into 4-5 paragraphs at most. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 01:26, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding News Reports Of Paying Little Or No Taxes

Fake news all over again as a strategy. If there were actual documents verifying these assumptions by journalists they would be here and also all over the internet. There are no documents therefore there cannot be any proper or valid reporting either way. This is just the left trying to cause doubt with undecided voters. Society is fairly ignorant to begin with so many in society will believe almost anything news outlets report. GregJustGreg (talk) 06:29, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe, just maybe, something around these comments belong in the article, and Im willing to look at any proposed edit. However, it looks like this account was created to make this comment and nothing else, and I think these comments lack a Neutral point of view Rklahn (talk) 07:51, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Payments in NYT report

According to the report: Each time, he requested an extension to file his 1040; and each time, he made the required payment to the I.R.S. for income taxes he might owe — $1 million for 2016 and $4.2 million for 2017. This is not mentioned anywhere in the entire article, let alone the NYT report section. Is this information noteworthy enough to include? --Steverci (talk) 03:35, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

IMHO, no. Our goal here should be to present points of view in context, and the paragraph this information is being taken from has contrary context. The full paragraph:

Each time, he requested an extension to file his 1040; and each time, he made the required payment to the I.R.S. for income taxes he might owe — $1 million for 2016 and $4.2 million for 2017. But virtually all of that liability was washed away when he eventually filed, and most of the payments were rolled forward to cover potential taxes in future years.
— The New York Times, LONG-CONCEALED RECORDS SHOW TRUMP’S CHRONIC LOSSES AND YEARS OF TAX AVOIDANCE

The Times context here is that the President paid $750 in federal taxes in 2016 and 2017, not $1M or $4.2M. Rklahn (talk) 04:11, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think User:Steverci is trying to make the point that Trump did pay taxes that were later refunded when he filed with deductions/credits he used. That to me is a notable point - just like anyone who has tax withheld all year and then files for a refund, Trump paid what his maximum liability was expected to be, then filed for and received a refund. The NYT piece includes this in context because the context isn't that he failed to pay taxes he owed, it's that he is an abuser of the tax code's many loopholes to reduce his liability to zero. Failing to clarify this in our article is not adhering to a NPOV and should be rectified. Trump followed all rules including the pre-payment of expected liability when he asked for and used an extension - and that is an important point missing from the article as it is now. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 22:14, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this is quite right. What Trump did was pay for an estimate of his tax liability, at the time he applied for an extension. Any federal tax payer who files for an extension has to do this, that is the law. It is a fact that he paid the projected estimate. This is not the same as paying taxes, and I cant imagine any reliable source would say this. Rklahn (talk) 05:14, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Rklahn, The NYT does say this - as quoted by yourself above. The exact quote: each time, he made the required payment to the I.R.S. for income taxes he might owe... all of that liability was washed away when he eventually filed (emphasis added). The NYT maintained a NPOV by pointing out that while he abused tax loopholes to lower his liability, he still followed the rules and paid his potential liability before eventually filing and receiving that refunded. The NYT included this because it is important to the story - he may not have paid any/much income tax, but he did not break any rules by doing so and in fact at this time he appears to have followed all the rules. This article currently is written like a hit piece - covering the negatives (he used loopholes to reduce his liability) and not covering the positive aspects in the very same article cited from the NYT. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 17:47, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Normally one makes a good estimate when applying for an extension. Best to have actually compute the correct tax. Not so well explained is which are proper uses of loopholes and which are not. I suspect that hair expenses for a TV star are valid business expenses. Giving money to kids, disguised as business expenses, is not. That seems to be also what his father did. Exactly how far the IRS and SDNY are at figuring this out, we don't know. Gah4 (talk) 20:53, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, legally any use of a loophole that is in compliance with the law is proper. Given that he is under audit right now that's spanned four years or more, it seems the IRS thinks he might not have complied with the law in some of his use of loopholes - but until they decide, we cannot speculate in Wikipedia's voice that he did or did not follow the law. At the risk of violating WP:NOTFORUM, I'll point out that "giving money to kids" if your kids are a part of your business, or if there is a business interest in doing so, is certainly able to be claimed as a business expense - and I guarantee you that Mr. Trump's tax attorneys are smart enough to have pages of documentation backing it up which is likely part of the reason this audit has taken so long.

It's hard to believe that there's this many loopholes in the US tax code, but there simply are - the NY times does a great job of being unbiased and pointing out when he was in compliance with the law. For that reason, I propose adding the following to the section on the report: While in many years Trump ended with little or no tax liability, there is no evidence he ever failed to file for an extension and pay his expected tax burden by the annual filing deadline - on that note, however, that should not be a bulleted list. The entire section there should be worked into prose if possible, and this added where appropriate. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 22:40, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I support your proposal, that's a well written and balanced assessment of the article. --Steverci (talk) 23:56, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Steverci, thanks, I've added it as a bullet for now. I have nowhere near the time to "prose-ify" the section... but I'll try in the future maybe... I encourage others to edit this section to include other "positive" information - right now the article reads a lot like a "hit piece" which is not what the NYT article is at all. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 00:06, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Contradictory statement

I think this is unclear:

Trump dismissed the report as fake news,[56] and criticized what he called the "bad intent" of the reporting, but did not dispute the facts behind the Times reporting.[57]

So he says it's fake news but does not dispute the facts?

I understand that Trump "often says contradictory things that cannot be reconciled", as user:Neutrality says. However, it is up to us to make it clear that this is Trump contradicting himself, and not Wikipedia contradicting itself. For example, we could rewrite it as something like this:

Trump dismissed the report as fake news,[56] and criticized what he called the "bad intent" of the reporting. However, he also said that he "did not dispute the facts" behind the report.[57]

That rewrite is purely hypothetical because I don't have a WaPo account and so can't see exactly what the second source is. But there must be a way to phrase this in a way that makes clear that the contradiction is Trump's and not Wikipedia's. Popcornfud (talk) 15:57, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe the easiest way to do this is just to take out the first clause: "Trump dismissed the report as fake news." We could say, as ABC News does, that Trump "blended denials, justifications in reaction to New York Times story on his taxes" Neutrality^talk 15:59, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've reworded the sentence to be more clear. Neutrality^talk 17:11, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Difficult to understand edit

I find this this edit very confusing. The edit removed the text "Trump engaged in tax avoidance to a far greater extent than most affluent Americans (the top 0.001% of tax filers)..." with the edit summary "There is evidence for this, but none that he is part of the top 0.001%." But our text does not say that Trump is in the top 0.001% of income or top 0.001% of tax filers. Rather, it is comparing Trump's tax avoidance to that group (i.e., he does it way more). This is an important point from the source material, which states it explicitly ("This tax avoidance sets him apart from most other affluent Americans."). Neutrality^talk 18:38, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hearing no response, I've reversed that edit. Neutrality^talk 19:18, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Moving most of lede into "Background" section

I've tried moving most of the lede into the "background" section, in what I think is an improvement: see this diff. I then added a one-sentence mention of the legal and poltical battles. This got reverted straight away by another editor, so I thought I'd bring it here. -- The Anome (talk) 18:39, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've had another go at this with this edit. Does anyone have any objections, or suggested improvements? -- The Anome (talk) 18:45, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't like the "Background and summary" section at all. The lead section is supposed to be the summary, so having a separate section entitled "summary" is duplicative. I also don't like any lead, in an article of this size that is just one paragraph - that's too short for a topic like this. The "new" one-paragraph lead almost omits entirely any mention of the congressional subpoenas, the New York grand jury subpoena and criminal investigation, and the two major Supreme Court cases about separation of powers. Those are undisputably major developments. Sorry, but I feel that this is decidedly not an improvement. Neutrality^talk 18:49, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Subpoenas can all be condensed into at most two or three sentences - they were issued, they were fought, and they were not complied with, after which there were lawsuits and forced compliance (for some of them). There is absolutely no need to include more information and especially quotes about those in the lead section. These subpoenas do not merit three paragraphs in the lead - and in fact the lead needs to include a summary of the other parts of the article more urgently than these three undue paragraphs - there is no mention of the CA/NY laws passed regarding this issue, there is not sufficient coverage of the outcome of this refusal.
- On a side note, "before" and "during" his presidency is a very weird way to organize this - I believe splitting it by years is going to be more efficient - and in doing so, a natural flow for the lead will also arise. To be quite blunt, right now the way this article is organized is very poor and that is one reason the lead is so hard to write right now. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 19:31, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  I agree with Neutrality that no article should have a "Summary" section - that's what the lead is for. But the lead really should be only be 4 paragraphs or so. Popcornfud (talk) 19:49, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- There has not been "forced compliance" with the subpoenas yet — litigation continues and that remains to be seen. If editors have thoughts on better flow (I agree that "before" and "during" the presidency is not an ideal organization), I'm all ears. With respect to the lead, I don't think it's reasonable to cover three different subpoenas (two from Congress, one from a grand jury) and two Supreme Court decisions in 2 or 3 sentences. The subpoenas had different purposes, aims, and different scopes and it seems reasonably to briefly cover that in the lead so that the reader, in the space of a few paragraphs, can get up to speed. As time goes on and the litigation proceeds (this could conceivably go back up to the Supreme Court a second time), I think we can shrink some of the earlier material accordingly. Neutrality^talk 19:58, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  They are all subpoenas - they may have had different documents requested, or different reasonings, but that is not important for a summary - which is what the lead is. The important summary information is that three separate entities issued subpoenas for some/various parts of Donald Trump's tax information, all of which were not complied with by those who they were issued to, and various lawsuits to force compliance have been filed which are at various places in the appeal process. I condensed all the information into one sentence - obviously a little more information is necessary (such as specific states/entities/documents requested, the current status of the three lawsuits, etc) but there is absolutely no need to cover them all in depth in the lead, and there is certainly no need for more than one paragraph (of 3-5 sentences at most) for the subpoenas/legal proceedings.
  
  I have already stated that I believe chronological is a better way to split the article. I think further that there is too much weight given to exact quotations from sources - remember that encyclopedia articles are not supposed to be 100% complete with all information in the world, but are themselves to be summaries of the most notable information. As one example, the second sentence of the Trump administration defies subpoenas subsection could be simplified to "On May 6, 2019, weeks after the subpoena was originally issued, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin declined to comply with the subpoena in a letter, asserting that it was an invalid subpoena and thus illegal for him to comply with. This contradicts the IRS's position in 1973, when a subpoena for then-president Richard Nixon's tax returns was complied with on the same day."
  
  Basically, the article right now is a bunch of "on this day this happened and/or this person said this exact quote" - there is virtually no attempt to write prose here and it honestly looks to me like exact quotes are being abused to avoid having to write neutral, comprehensive, and well-written encyclopedic prose for the things. I think this has also resulted in much unnecessary detail being given in the body - there is no reason that there needs to be 5th level subheaders for each effort to block the subpoenas, as each one should be able to be covered in a paragraph or two if unnecessary detail is avoided. This is especially true for the second subsection here (covering Trump vs Mazars), as it has a main article - which policy then dictates we limit the section in this article to the necessary summary information. The section here on the NY battle is a whopping seven paragraphs long - which is by no means a summary for a topic that has a main article.
  
  TLDR: Remember that this article covers some topics with main articles, and that not all information must be covered in this article simply because it's the most visible/broad. For these topics that have main articles, the content in this article should be limited to a "lead like" summary of a couple paragraphs at most. Fixing these issues will greatly improve the organization, and after such time the lead can be worked on more easily. Regards-bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 21:00, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  Berchanhimez, basically +1 to all that. Popcornfud (talk) 21:32, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

One potential issue preventing the lead from being condensed is the massive number of citations present in the lead - I recommend moving all of the definitions to appropriate places in the text, and only leaving named refs in the lead (ex: only leaving <ref name=name /> in the lead) - this way editors can work on moving/trimming without causing ref-errors. I'd also encourage people to review the references that are present in the lead and determine whether they're really necessary or can simply exist in the body itself. This may also be helped if the content in the lead is made more general and summary-style - which by definition won't get into the exact controversial statements which require inline citations. Regards, -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 22:08, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I know a very small number of articles where the references are actually in the references section, and then referred to by name other places. This seems rare, though. Rare enough that I am not sure I know how to do it right. Would that help here? Gah4 (talk) 20:44, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Gah4, it would likely help - as would the use of page/paragraph numbers for the longer sources (such as by using {{rp|para. 5}} or similar to produce the paragraph numbers next to each use of the ref separately)^{: para. 5}.. but I think both of those changes would require consensus here per WP:CITEVAR. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 22:43, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Resectioning and lead

I've resectioned the article into an order I feel makes more sense - headings likely aren't the best names and some sections could use better subsectioning though, so please feel free to help. Regards -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 22:57, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've also now made a WP:BOLD rewrite and reorganization to the lead to try and bring it in line with the article's organization and condense it into four clearly delineated paragraphs - and removed a lot of extraneous information and unnecessary direct quotes from the lead. Unfortunately, this has left a lot of references in the lead where they're likely unnecessary - if people could take a look and move refs down into the article body itself where they're appropriate, or else remove overcitation now that I've condensed it, I'd appreciate it. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 16:38, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]