Former President Donald Trump nothing in federal income taxes during his final year in the White House, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.
Newly released documents show that though Trump reported making tens of millions of dollars per year, he was able to avoid paying taxes by claiming large business losses and decreasing the taxable amount made. In 2015, Trump reported $105 million in losses. The following three years saw $73 million, $45 million and $23 million in claimed losses.
In 2016 and 2017, Trump paid just $750 in federal taxes. In 2018, he didn’t pay anything.
Though the JTC did not verify the numbers Trump reported, it did condemn the Internal Revenue Service for not being more thorough in the examination of Trump’s filings in what should be an automatic review of the president’s returns. The IRS, however, did not audit Trump until he had been in the White House for more than two years. Even then the audit was incomplete.
Trump became the first president in the modern era to choose to keep his tax statements private. He claimed it was because the IRS kept auditing him.
Ways and Means Committee chairman Richard Neal led an investigation lasting just under four years to obtain Trump’s tax returns and was aided last month by the Supreme Court which blocked Trump’s final attempt to keep them private.
This adds to the controversy surrounding Trump who is already the subject of multiple investigations including allegedly working to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, illegally taking classified White House documents to his home in Mar-a-Lago following his time as president and for his role in possibly inciting the January 6, 2021, Capitol riots. The Trump Organization was also found guilty of tax fraud earlier this month.
The filings are expected to be released in the near future after Trump’s personal information is removed.
