Explosive claims about Donald Trump’s tax returns revealed in New York Times report

The report claims that Trump paid just $750 in income taxes per year in the first two years of his presidency

Donald Trump paid no income taxes in 10 of the 15 years before he became president of the United States and just $750 in income taxes per year in 2016 and 2017, the first two years of his presidency. These are just two of the claims in an explosive report published on Sunday night by The New York Times, which could have a significant impact on the US presidential election, which is just over five weeks away. “The tax returns that Mr. Trump has long fought to keep private tell a story fundamentally different from the one he has sold to the American public,” the New York Times report reads. “His reports to the IRS portray a businessman who takes in hundreds of millions of dollars a year yet racks up chronic losses that he aggressively employs to avoid paying taxes. “Now, with his financial challenges mounting, the records show that he depends more and more on making money from businesses that put him in potential and often direct conflict of interest with his job as president.” The New York Times claims it has obtained more than two decades worth of tax return data for Trump and the hundreds of businesses that make up his organisation up to 2018; the paper does not have records of Trump’s personal returns in 2018 or 2019. The report claims that, as the election approaches, Trump’s finances “are under stress, beset by losses and hundreds of millions of dollars in debt coming due that he has personally guaranteed”. It also claims that he could face a tax bill of up to $100 million as a result of a dispute with the IRS over a tax refund worth $72.9 million that he claimed and received after declaring huge losses. In response to claims by the New York Times, a lawyer for the Trump Organisation, Alan Garten, said that “most, if not all, of the facts appear to be inaccurate”. “Over the past decade, President Trump has paid tens of millions of dollars in personal taxes to the federal government, including paying millions in personal taxes since announcing his candidacy in 2015,” a statement by Garten read. Those claims have been disputed by the New York Times, however, which plans to publish additional articles based on its findings from Trump’s tax returns over the coming weeks. You can read the New York Times report in full here.