Trump Paid Only $ 750 in Taxes in 2016 and 2017, According to The New York Times | International



[ad_1]

US President Donald Trump at a rally in Virginia last Friday.
US President Donald Trump at a rally in Virginia last Friday.TOM BRENNER / Reuters

Donald Trump has not paid federal taxes in 10 of the last 15 years. In addition, he only had to pay $ 750 (the equivalent of about 4,170 reais) in 2016, the year in which he was elected to the presidency of the United States, and the same amount during his first year in office, according to exclusive information published this Sunday by The New York Times. The Republican, the only American president in recent history who has not made his tax information public, is in a difficult financial situation and faces millions of dollars in debt, according to Times, who claims to have had access to two decades of statements from both Trump and his hundreds of companies. The newspaper does not have the personal information for 2018 and 2019.

Alan Garten, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, the New York business conglomerate, told the newspaper that “most, if not all, of the facts appear inaccurate” and said in a statement: “Over the past decade, President Trump has paid tens of millions of dollars in personal taxes since he announced his candidacy in 2015. ”Still, the Times Remember that the assessor mixes income taxes with other federal taxes and misuses the concept of the tax credit.

The information is explosive material just weeks before the presidential election and just two days before the first face-to-face debate with his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden. In addition, the news came a day after Trump launched a crucial battle for the Supreme Court, with the appointment of Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett to replace the late Justice Ruth Bider Ginsburg.

Trump’s tax returns, jealously guarded by the president, were one of the most coveted documents by American journalism, as well as by Democratic prosecutors and politicians, at least since the businessman arrived at the White House nearly four years ago. At a press conference at the White House, the president scorned the exclusive, calling it “fake news,” and said he paid his taxes without giving more details.

Trump, a Manhattan real estate entrepreneur, has always bragged about being very good at business on the one hand and skilled enough to pay very little taxes on the other, but at the same time he tried to hide all that information , that candidates traditionally Presidential elections are public. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office had been requesting this information for a long time, as had the Democrats in Congress, and the matter ended up in the Supreme Court, which in July made a decision and handed over a shovel and shovel.

The highest court has ruled that Trump cannot block the financial and tax information alleged by the prosecutor, although he has returned the congressional lawsuit to lower courts.

One of the trump cards that Trump used in his run for the presidency was to present himself to the world as a successful businessman, a self-made entrepreneur, who had managed to build an empire, could also bring out the best in a country like the United States. Some analyzes carried out at the time have already demystified this portrait, since he entered the business hand in hand with his father, already a millionaire builder, and his wealth has not multiplied above what the market itself has done over the years. years.

Now, in the arsenal of newly released data, a Trump appears with a bad tide in business, but with much better fortune than entrepreneur television, judging by the emoluments he obtained as a presenter of The newbie (The newbie), or famous reality show where the current president, in the role of business guru, examined the projects of aspiring entrepreneurs. This program and the related contracts and licenses earned him $ 427 million, which he invested in golf courses.

On the other hand, in the next four years more than $ 300 million in loans will mature, for which Trump himself is personally responsible.

The newspaper details that all the information published on Sunday was obtained through sources with legal access to it and that it was able to prove the veracity of parts of it by comparing it with some separate documents that came to light in recent years. For example, in October 2016, just before the elections, the Times reported that in 1995 Trump declared losses of $ 916 million from the ruin of his Atlantic City casinos and other failed businesses, resulting in a tax deduction of up to $ 50 million in revenue per year “which could have allowed him to avoid legally pay any federal income tax for the next 18 years ”.

In the context of your financial troubles, the documents always reveal, according to the Times, conflicts of interest generated by Trump’s refusal to withdraw from his business while he was in the White House. The documents put concrete numbers of money flow from lobbyists, businessmen and foreign officials to some of their properties for the first time, becoming bazaars of influence. This is the case with his hotel in Washington, which received a payment of $ 397,602 from the Billy Graham Evangelical Association for an event in 2017.

His Mar-a-Lago golf club in Palm Beach, Florida, one of Trump’s most lucrative businesses known as the South White House, is a common source of conflict of interest complaints. Mar-a-Lago’s revenues have increased considerably since Trump announced his presidential candidacy. The club has seen a surge of new members since 2015, which has allowed it to pocket an additional five million a year, according to the Times. New courtiers nearly multiplied the club’s income through membership dues by almost 10, according to the newspaper, from $ 664,000 in 2014 to six million in 2016. In 2017, Trump doubled the amount new members owe. pay to belong to the club.

The documents also show, according to the Times, how important disbursements have been made by different companies to carry out events and congresses in Mar-a-Lago since the Trump presidency. The same is true of other Trump properties, such as his golf club in Doral, Miami, which raised at least 7 million from Bank of America between 2015 and 2016, or $ 406,599 from the United States Chamber of Commerce in 2018.

[ad_2]