Donald Trump avoided US income taxes for years, paid just $750 in 2016, 2017: Report

New Delhi, 28-Sep-2020

US President Donald Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency and in his first year in the White House -- a report published in The New York Times on Sunday said. "Donald Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750," the report, titled 'The President's taxes: Long-concealed records show Trump�s chronic losses and years of tax avoidance', said. Donald Trump, who has fiercely guarded his tax filings and is the only president in modern times not to make them public, paid no federal income taxes in 10 of the past 15 years, the report said. He campaigned for office as a billionaire real estate mogul and successful businessman. "He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years largely because he reported losing much more money than he made," the report further claimed. The New York Times report said the disclosure comes from tax return data it obtained extending over two decades and "the hundreds of companies that make up his [Trump's] business organisation, including detailed information from his first two years in office. It does not include his personal returns for 2018 or 2019." Speaking at a news conference at the White House, Donald Trump dismissed the report as "fake news" and said he has paid taxes, though he gave no specifics. Donald Trump vowed that information about his taxes "will all be revealed". But he offered no timeline for the disclosure and made similar promises during the 2016 campaign on which he never followed through. In fact, Donald Trump has fielded court challenges against those seeking access to his returns, including the US House, which is suing for access to Trump�s tax returns as part of congressional oversight. A lawyer for the Trump Organisation, Alan Garten told the Times that "most, if not all, of the facts appear to be inaccurate." Garten said in a statement to the news organisation that 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." During his first general election debate against Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, Clinton said that perhaps Trump wasn�t releasing his tax returns because he had paid nothing in federal taxes. Donald Trump interrupted then her to say, "That makes me smart".