Donald Trump paid just $750 in annual federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017, according to tax records obtained by The New York Times.
But even that low sum is more than Trump paid the government in other recent years, according to the Times. In 10 out of the last 15 years, Trump paid no federal income tax, citing mammoth losses. The bombshell report offers new insight into Trump’s tax returns, which Trump has bucked presidential candidate tradition by refusing to release.
Trump called the Times report “fake news” at a Sunday press conference.
“The New York Times has been doing fake story after fake story,” Trump said.
The tax data also portrays Trump as financially pressed by loans and a tax dispute. Trump is personally liable for over $300 million in loans that have to be paid off over the next four years, according to the report, including a $100 million on Trump Tower in New York City. Trump is also embroiled in a tax refund fight with the IRS that could force him to pay more than $100 million.
The tax data also suggests that Trump has lowered his tax liability by paying daughter Ivanka Trump as a consultant for his businesses. The Times report flags $26 million in mysterious “consulting fees” made between 2010 and 2018, noting that some of the payments match payments Ivanka Trump has publicly disclosed.
The Times obtained Donald Trump’s tax information extending over more than two decades, revealing struggling properties, vast write-offs, an audit battle and hundreds of millions in debt coming due.
quote:
The tax returns that Mr. Trump has long fought to keep private tell a story fundamentally different from the one he has sold to the American public. His reports to the I.R.S. portray a businessman who takes in hundreds of millions of dollars a year yet racks up chronic losses that he aggressively employs to avoid paying taxes. Now, with his financial challenges mounting, the records show that he depends more and more on making money from businesses that put him in potential and often direct conflict of interest with his job as president.
The New York Times has obtained tax-return data extending over more than two decades for Mr. 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 his personal returns for 2018 or 2019. This article offers an overview of The Times’s findings; additional articles will be published in the coming weeks.
The returns are some of the most sought-after, and speculated-about, records in recent memory. In Mr. Trump’s nearly four years in office — and across his endlessly hyped decades in the public eye — journalists, prosecutors, opposition politicians and conspiracists have, with limited success, sought to excavate the enigmas of his finances. By their very nature, the filings will leave many questions unanswered, many questioners unfulfilled. They comprise information that Mr. Trump has disclosed to the I.R.S., not the findings of an independent financial examination. They report that Mr. Trump owns hundreds of millions of dollars in valuable assets, but they do not reveal his true wealth. Nor do they reveal any previously unreported connections to Russia.
quote:
All of the information The Times obtained was provided by sources with legal access to it. While most of the tax data has not previously been made public, The Times was able to verify portions of it by comparing it with publicly available information and confidential records previously obtained by The Times.
-------------------------------- We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb
Bazootiehead-in-training
Posts: 37884 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010
Not likely. But it will be fun to watch him squirm. It already started today.
Plus it keeps him off balance.
-------------------------------- We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb
Bazootiehead-in-training
Posts: 37884 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010
His fanboi base will eat it up. Paying taxes is for suckers and losers, after all.
But he can't win with the fanboi base. I don't see how this helps him with anyone else. Plus it will keep him off balance, potentially upend any debate "strategy" he might have had, and demoralize his revenue base and his supporters in the Senate.
Posts: 12530 | Location: Williamsburg, VA | Registered: 19 July 2005
In the past he's talked about how he is clever he is about avoiding taxes. The braggadocio is such an endearing quality of his.
I'm sure the average blue collar worker will appreciate and admire DJT's use of tax strategies to save himself money.
-------------------------------- We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb
Bazootiehead-in-training
Posts: 37884 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010
Mr. Trump has written off as business expenses costs — including fuel and meals — associated with his aircraft, used to shuttle him among his various homes and properties. Likewise the cost of haircuts, including the more than $70,000 paid to style his hair during “The Apprentice.”
He should ask for a refund.....
-------------------------------- We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb
Bazootiehead-in-training
Posts: 37884 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010
These are not his personal income taxes, as I understand it. It's the tax returns for his various businesses. Based on a quick perusal, it seems to paint the story of an ever-tightening vise, and he is a total con man.
Posts: 35377 | Location: West: North and South! | Registered: 20 April 2005
Originally posted by Nina: These are not his personal income taxes, as I understand it. It's the tax returns for his various businesses. Based on a quick perusal, it seems to paint the story of an ever-tightening vise, and he is a total con man.
NYT says they have his personal taxes as well as his business information.
Posts: 12530 | Location: Williamsburg, VA | Registered: 19 July 2005
Melania’s not bright enough. Ivanka wouldn’t want Uday and Qusay to learn about her sweet consulting pay deal where she never had to offer an opinion because no one wanted one.
There was that Skeezy accountant guy who rated a couple of news cycles a while back. Could have been him. Probably needs $ as Trump never pays anybody.
$20 says it’s Cohen.
-------------------------------- Life is short. Play with your dog.
