Washington: President Donald Trump paid no federal income tax in 10 of the past 15 years, The New York Times reported on Sunday. He paid just $750 in both 2016 and 2017, after years of reporting heavy losses from his enterprises to offset hundreds of millions of dollars in income, the report read citing tax-return data.
The disclosure comes from tax return data Times obtained extending over two decades and comes at a pivotal moment ahead of the first presidential debate on Tuesday and weeks before the Presidential elections.
The Times reported that Trump was able to minimize his tax bill by reporting heavy losses across his business empire. It said he claimed $47.4 million in losses in 2018, despite saying he had income of at least $434.9 million in a financial disclosure that year.
The Times emphasized the documents reveal only what Trump told the government about his businesses, and did not disclose his true wealth.
The report states that Trump was currently embroiled in a decade-long Internal Revenue Service audit over a $72.9 million tax refund he claimed after declaring large losses. If the IRS rules against him in that audit, he could have to pay over $100 million, according to the newspaper.
The bombshell report also chronicled a series of questionable consultant payments which Trump appears to have made to his daughter Ivanka, and it paints an overall financial picture of Trump being at odds with his public image.Calling the report “total fake news” at a White House news conference, Trump again cited an ongoing audit as his reason for not releasing his returns. In a statement to the Times, Alan Garten, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, said Trump had paid millions of dollars in personal taxes over the last decade, without weighing in on the specific finding of minimal income taxes.