October 1, 2016 | No Comments
An anonymous source sent the New York Times documents showing that Donald Trump reported a nearly $1 billion loss on his 1995 tax returns — which could have helped him avoid paying any federal income taxes for 18 years, the paper reported on Saturday.
The Times, which hired tax experts to analyze the records, determined that “tax rules that are especially advantageous to wealthy filers would have allowed Mr. Trump to use his $916 million loss to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income over an 18-year period.”
“Although Mr. Trump’s taxable income in subsequent years is as yet unknown,” the Times wrote, “a $916 million loss in 1995 would have been large enough to wipe out more than $50 million a year in taxable income over 18 years.”
Times reporter Susanne Craig received the documents, which the paper describes as “three pages from what appeared to be Mr. Trump’s 1995 tax returns,” in the mail from an unknown source. The documents were sent last month and postmarked New York City, with a return address of Trump Tower — the real estate mogul’s headquarters.
A statement from Trump’s campaign neither confirmed nor denied that he filed a $916 million loss in his 1995 tax returns, but charged that the documents were “illegally obtained” in what it said was “a further demonstration that the New York Times, like establishment media in general, is an extension of the Clinton Campaign, the Democratic Party and their global special interests.”
“Mr. Trump is a highly-skilled businessman who has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required,” the statement continued. “That being said, Mr. Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes. Mr. Trump knows the tax code far better than anyone who has ever run for President and he is the only one that knows how to fix it.”
A lawyer for Trump sent a letter to the Times describing the publication of the documents as illegal and threatening “prompt initiation of appropriate legal action,” according to the newspaper.
CNN reported on Sept. 12 that Dean Baquet, the executive editor of the Times, told a Harvard University forum that he would risk prison, if necessary, to publish Trump’s tax returns.
Asked at the event by documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras whether he would be willing to do so, Baquet said the unauthorized publication of Trump’s tax records is in the public interest because he is “a presidential candidate whose whole campaign is built on his success as a businessman, and his wealth.”
Hillary Clinton’s campaign has yet to release an official reaction to the story, but the candidate’s Twitter account — managed by her staff — immediately retweeted the story twice, and many of her aides weighed in on Twitter within minutes.
“BOMBSHELL: Trump’s returns show just how lousy a businessman he is AND how long he may have avoided paying any taxes,” wrote press secretary Brian Fallon.
During Monday’s presidential debate, Clinton attacked Trump for refusing to release his tax returns, which he said he will not disclose until an IRS audit of them is complete.
Clinton floated several alternate theories as to why Trump was refusing to release the documents, including, she said, because “maybe he doesn’t want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he’s paid nothing in federal taxes.”
“The only years that anybody’s ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didn’t pay any federal income tax,” Clinton said.
“That makes me smart,” Trump said.