Trump’s tax returns were just leaked. Here’s the four key takeaways.
Trump’s tax returns were just leaked.
Here’s the four key takeaways.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s tax returns have been one of the big questions in American politics since the 2016 election campaign.
Trump was the first major-party nominee since 1976 not to release his tax returns.
Now, The New York Times has obtained documents shedding light on 18 years worth of Trump’s tax filings.
There are four key takeaways from the new documents:
Trump paid next to no income tax
Trump lost a lot of money
Trump’s fighting the tax office over a $73 million refund
No new links to Russia revealed
1 - Trump paid next to no income tax
In the year Trump was elected President, he paid just $750 in federal income taxes.
He was able to do this by telling the Internal Revenue Service - the U.S. tax office - that he had lost so much money he was unable to pay tax.
In 10 of the 15 years prior to his running for President, Trump paid no income taxes at all.
2 - Trump lost a lot of money
The documents obtained by The New York Times show that at the time Trump ran for president, his businesses were routinely losing money.
In the 2000s, he was profiting from his Miss Universe and The Apprentice businesses.
But the tax return data shows that Trump invested most of that money into golf courses and hotels that by the 2010s were losing him hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
3 - Trump’s fighting the tax office over a $73 million refund
The President is amid a decade-long audit battle with the IRS over a $72.9 million tax refund he claimed.
If he is disallowed the audit, Trump will be forced to pay more than $100 million.
4 - No new to links to Russia revealed
One reason why Trump might have wanted to avoid releasing his tax returns was because it would show business dealings in other countries, leaving him open to suggestions he had conflicts of interests while being President.
But the tax return data does not reveal any new information about business dealings in Russia.
It does show business dealings in several other countries - including Scotland, Ireland, the Philippines, India and Turkey.
Trump’s response
A lawyer for Trump told The New York Times that “most, if not all, of the facts appear to be inaccurate”.
“Over the past decade, President Trump has paid tens of millions of dollars in personal taxes to the federal government, including paying millions in personal taxes since announcing his candidacy in 2015,” Trump Organisation lawyer Alan Garten said in a statement.