Which is worse for Trump? Perception or reality?

I’ve been reading a lot about this $915 million tax loss that Trump had 17 years ago, and how it means that he likely hasn’t paid taxes for that amount of time.

From what I read, this is more a testament to what a crappy businessman he is, and much less interesting as a potential tax dodger, since this seems to be all legitimate.

So this seems to be all about perception – people are aghast that he didn’t pay any tax for 15 years. But if it was legal not to, then why should he?

So this big to-do about taxes seems like artificial outrage.

The question is: does Trump have more to fear from the perception of tax cheating, or from the actual reality?

TO what degree does mob perception overwhelm the truth?