Trump entered the 2016 presidential race as a Republican and was elected in a surprise victory over the Democratic nominee. Hillary clinton.
“Donald J. Trump paid $ 750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another $ 750.” the New York Times it reported Sunday, citing tax return data spanning 20 years.
The report came just days before Trump’s first presidential debate with Democratic rival Joe Biden on Tuesday and weeks before the November 3 presidential election.
Trump paid no income tax in 10 of the previous 15 years, largely because he reported losing far more money than he made, according to the report.
The US president immediately dismissed the report as “totally false news.”
Presidents of the United States are not required by law to disclose details of their personal finances, but since Richard Nixon it has done. Trump, who has fiercely guarded his tax returns, is the only president in modern times who has not made them public.
In fact, he has filed legal challenges against those seeking access to his returns, including the U.S. House, which is demanding access to Trump’s tax returns as part of congressional oversight.
According to the NYT investigative report, Trump has long struggled to maintain the privacy of telling a fundamentally different story than the one he has sold to the American public.
“His reports to the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) portray a businessman who receives hundreds of millions of dollars a year but accumulates chronic losses that he uses aggressively to avoid paying taxes. Now, with his financial challenges mounting, the records show that he increasingly relies on making money from businesses that put him in a potential conflict of interest and often directly from his job as president, “he said.
The report claimed to have obtained tax return data of more than two decades for Trump and the hundreds of companies that make up his business organization, including detailed information from his first two years in office. It does not include your personal returns for 2018 or 2019.
The report revealed that in his first two years in the White House, Trump’s overseas income totaled $ 73 million, much of which came from his golf properties in Scotland and Ireland. Some of the revenue came from licensing deals in countries like the Philippines ($ 3 million), India ($ 2.3 million), and Turkey ($ 1 million).
“He reported that he paid taxes, in turn, on several of his overseas companies,” he said, adding: “In 2017, the president’s $ 750 contribution to United States government operations was dwarfed by $ 15,598 that he or his companies paid in Panama, the $ 145,400 in India and the $ 156,824 in the Philippines. ”
Examined tax data provides a roadmap of disclosures, from cancellations for the cost of a criminal defense attorney and a mansion used as a family retirement to a full accounting of the millions of dollars the president received from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. the report said.
The records “reveal the emptiness, but also the magic, behind the image of the self-made billionaire,” he said.
Meanwhile, at a press conference at the White House on Sunday, Trump dismissed the NYT report as “totally bogus news” and claimed the media house had previously tried the same thing as well.
“It’s fake news. It’s totally fake news. Made up. Fake. We went through the same stories. You could have asked me the same questions four years ago. I had to litigate this and talk about it,” he said.
“I paid taxes … you’ll see it as soon as my tax returns are under audit. They have been under audit for a long time,” Trump said.
The president said the IRS doesn’t treat him well. “There are people in the IRS, they treat me very bad … The New York Times tried the same thing. They want to create a little story … they are doing everything they can,” he said.
In response to questions, Trump said he has paid a lot of money in taxes. “First of all, I have paid a lot and I have also paid a lot of state income taxes. New York State charges a lot and I paid a lot of money in the state. Everything will be revealed. It’s going to come out … after the audit, “he said.
Trump said he has 108 pages of tax returns “for all these different companies that are doing really well, obviously.”
“Those presentations are very comprehensive. They are very large. They are very powerful. They are very accurate. Those are the presentations that you will learn a lot more from and when they are done,” Trump said.
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