Financial records that President Donald Trump has persistently fought to keep hidden from the American public show that the billionaire real estate mogul didn’t pay a dollar in federal income taxes in 10 of the 15 years prior to his White House victory and paid just $750 in both 2016 and 2017, revelations that further expose the extent to which the U.S. tax code imposes greater burdens on the working class than the ultra-wealthy.
“In 2016 and ‘17, I paid thousands of dollars a year in taxes as a bartender. Trump paid $750,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) tweeted late Sunday in response to the bombshell New York Times report on the president’s tax records. “He contributed less to funding our communities than waitresses and undocumented immigrants. Donald Trump has never cared for our country more than he cares for himself. A walking scam.”
According to the Times, which obtained long-sought tax returns spanning two decades, the records provide new insights into how Trump has utilized massive losses accumulated in the world of business to avoid paying federal income taxes:
Mr. Trump’s net income from his fame — his 50% share of “The Apprentice,” together with the riches showered upon him by the scores of suitors paying to use his name — totaled $427.4 million through 2018. A further $176.5 million in profit came to him through his investment in two highly successful office buildings.
So how did he escape nearly all taxes on that fortune? Even the effective tax rate paid by the wealthiest one percent of Americans could have caused him to pay more than $100 million.
The answer rests in a third category of Mr. Trump’s endeavors: businesses that he owns and runs himself. The collective and persistent losses he reported from them largely absolved him from paying federal income taxes on the $600 million from “The Apprentice,” branding deals and investments.
The records also offer new details surrounding a decade-long, behind-the-scenes fight between Trump and the IRS over a $72.9 million income tax refund the billionaire claimed and received in 2010 thanks to a “little-noticed provision in a bill [former President Barack Obama] signed as part of the Great Recession recovery effort.”
Under the provision, the Times explained, “business owners could request full refunds of taxes paid in the prior four years, and 50% of those from the year before that.”
“Mr. Trump had paid no income taxes in 2008. But the change meant that when he filed his taxes for 2009, he could seek a refund of not just the $13.3 million he had paid in 2007, but also the combined $56.9 million paid in 2005 and 2006, when ‘The Apprentice’ created what was likely the biggest income tax bite of his life.”
The enormous refund is the subject of an ongoing IRS audit that the president has repeatedly cited as a justification for his refusal to release his tax returns, breaking with decades of precedent.
The Times reported that “the dispute may center on a single claim that jumps off the page of Mr. Trump’s 2009 tax return: a declaration of more than $700 million in business losses that he had not been allowed to use in prior years. Unleashing that giant tax-avoidance coupon enabled him to receive some or all of his refund.”
Shock of shocks! Donald Trump, the self-proclaimed billionaire, received a $72.9 million tax refund from the IRS while not paying a nickel in federal income taxes in 10 out of 15 years.
Yep. Trump l-o-v-e-s corporate socialism for himself, rugged capitalism for everyone else.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) September 27, 2020
In a statement late Sunday, Stand Up America spokesperson Ryan Thomas said that “a man who uses dubious tax schemes to avoid paying taxes or lies to the public about his finances has no place in the Oval Office.”
“Four years ago, Donald Trump broke decades of precedent when he refused to release his tax returns to the public. At each turn since, he’s attempted to shield his financial records from the public — even as congressional and criminal investigators look into how he’s profited off the presidency and his decades of fraudulent tax schemes,” said Thomas. “We’ve demanded Trump’s tax returns for years because the American people deserve to know what he’s paying — and the answer appears to be very little.”
On top of laying bare Trump’s long-running efforts to dodge federal income taxes, observers noted that the records also offer a window into a world of tax avoidance by the wealthiest Americans that’s far broader than the president’s personal exploits.
“There’s so much in these tax returns that are not just about Trump, but about how the rich have different rules,” tweeted Michael Linden, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative. “A worker earning an hourly wage can’t deduct ‘business expenses’ from their income. A teacher can’t carry over losses for a decade.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy