The year that Donald Trump won the presidency he paid $750 in federal income taxes.
After his first year in the Oval Office, he paid another $750 in taxes.
According to a new report by the New York Times, Trump paid no income taxes in 10 of the previous 15 years. The main reason he paid no taxes was that he lost more money than he made.
For more than a decade now Trump has been involved in an audit battle with the IRS over the legitimacy of a $72.9 million tax refund that he claimed. Yes, you read that right, Trump claimed a $72.9 million tax return.
The New York Times was able to obtain tax-return data extending over more than two decades for Trump. The data does not include his personal returns for 2018 or 2019.
The tax data that the Times reviewed revealed write-offs for the cost of a criminal defense lawyer, a mansion used as a family retreat, and the millions Trump received from the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant, which took place in Moscow.
Trump appears to have put the majority of his fortune into his golf resorts, which according to the tax documents have hemorrhaged cash.
One of the most outrageous things reported by the Times is that Trump wrote off $70,000 on his taxes for getting his hair done for “The Apprentice.” One must wonder what he wrote off for makeup and his spray-on tan.
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A long battle to access Trump’s taxes has taken place since he announced his candidacy and Trump has often questioned why anyone would want to see his taxes.
“There’s nothing to learn from them,” he said in 2016. He went on to say that there was more useful information in his annual financial disclosures that are required of him as president.
The records also reveal that Trump owes more than $300 million in loans that will come due soon.
The Times noted that “the records go much further toward revealing the actual and potential conflicts of interest created by Mr. Trump’s refusal to divest himself of his business interests while in the White House. His properties have become bazaars for collecting money directly from lobbyists, foreign officials and others seeking face time, access or favor; the records for the first time put precise dollar figures on those transactions.”
During the time period that Trump paid $750 in taxes, he paid far more in taxes overseas. He and his companies paid $15,598 to Panama, $145,400 to India, and $156,824 to the Philippines.
Billy Graham Evangelistic Association paid over $397,000 to Trump’s Washington, DC, hotel in 2017.
Reportedly Trump also helped his parents dodge taxes back in the 1990s, which included “instances of outright fraud” that helped him to amass a fortune for them.
Trump received an estimated $413 million from his father’s real estate empire, starting at the age of 3.
