Name: Donald Trump 'paid $750 in federal income taxes' - BBC News
Uploaded: 2020-10-24T18:45:05.000Z
Duration: 10 min 44 s
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Let's start with the report from The New York Times, which says President Trump, who's a billionaire, paid less income tax than teachers, firefighters and nurses in the year he won the presidency as well as in his first year in office.

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The newspaper says it obtained tax records for Mr Trump and his companies over two decades, and he paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017.

It also says that President Trump paid no income tax it all in 10 of the previous 15 years.

The Times also takes aim at President Trump's wealth.

In a public filing, Mr Trump said he made at least $400 million in 2018.

The newspaper challenges this, saying that his tax returns show the president actually made a loss of more than $40 million.

Trump has dismissed the report as fake news.

Our North America correspondent Peter Bourjos, reports once again Donald Trump and his tax returns the story that's dogged the president ever since he announced he was running for office on long before as a businessman.

Now The New York Times says it's obtained tax return data for Mr Trump dating back more than two decades.

Along with the hundreds of companies that make up his business organization and detailed information from his first two years in the White House, the paper says, the data shows his finances are under stress, beset by losses with struggling properties on hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.

It reports that Mr Trump paid only $750 in federal income taxes in the year he won the presidency on another 750.

During his first year in office, he paid no income tax it all in 10 of the previous 15 years, according to the paper.

This, it says, was largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.

The records reveal the hollow nous but also the wizardry behind the self made billionaire image flouting presidential tradition, Mr Trump has long refused to make his tax affairs public.

He's always insisted his returns were the subject of an audit by the US tax authorities, preventing him from releasing details.

Speaking at a news conference at the White House, he was quick to deny the latest story straight news.

You could've asked me the same questions four years ago.

I had to litigate this and talk about it.

No, Actually, I paid tax, but and you'll see that as soon as my tax returns, it's under audit.

A lawyer for the Trump organization said the New York Times story was riddled with gross inaccuracies, and he questioned its timing.

It was, he said, part of an ongoing smear campaign in the run up to the election.

It follows Mr Trump's controversial nomination of a conservative judge to sit on the U.

It also marks the start of a pivotal week in the campaign when the president and Joe Biden will finally go head to head on TV.

Los Angeles I'm joined now by Laura Podesta from CBS News, Who's in Ohio, head of the first presidential debate, Laura, Thanks very much for joining us.

First of all, what's been the reaction to this New York Times report?

Well, as you heard in the report Prior President Trump's team and himself.

This has been a witch hunt that's been ongoing since his 2016 campaign, and the fact that those tax returns were not released is part of the article he's going to point to as the fact that they that news or that information is fake.

It's not going to be revealing the actual content of the tax returns, at least not yet in order to protect its sources.

But this will be a trickle effect is in the lead up to the election.

We know that The New York Times says it has many other articles that it's ready to release.

In addition to this overview of the tax returns assed faras Joe Biden's campaign, he's responding already with an ad, and that ad gives the average federal income tax return for normal American workers like construction managers and nurses, as being in the thousands of dollars per year on average.

And it's stark in comparison to President Trump's alleged tax returns in 2016 and 2017 which was just 7 57 $150 each.

We also know that the Biden campaign is using this as an opportunity to fundraise there now releasing vinyl stickers reading quote.

I paid more in taxes than President Trump.

As you say, we're about four weeks away from the presidential election and tomorrow in Ohio will be the first presidential debate, which is why you're there.

No doubt this will be something that the Biden camp will raise and continue to raise throughout the debate.

This was not on the predetermined list of topics that Chris Wallace had released ahead of this debate.

But now that The New York Times has come out with this article, it is surely going to be something that the former vice president is going to bring up and something that I think President Trump will have to defend again and again on the debate stage.

Of course, this debate is 90 minutes long.

It's going to be covering several topics, no commercial break, so there will be an opportunity for the president to deflect and to use a lot of the examples that I gave before where he can say, Look, the New York Times never released the actual tax returns.

How how can you prove this isn't fake news?

This has been a witch hunt since 2016 So I also think that this debate will be an opportunity for the candidates to really show their constituents the people who they believe will vote for them, why they are presidential.

So I don't think that there's going to be as much bullying as we might have thought or expect there to be on the debate stage.

Um, this is according to a political science professor that I spoke to over the weekend.

She said she she really thinks that they'll they will tone down any form off offense, and they'll really be encouraging voters to head to the polls on November 3rd because so many voters here in the US are already decided.

So these these candidates know that it's going to take a lot to change their mind.

So I really think they're going to be telling people, you know, just head to the polls, make sure that you vote for me, Laura, Thanks so much for that update there from Ohio.

Now I'm joined by Dr Julie Norman from University College London, who has been following the saga of Donald Trump's taxes.

Thank you very much, Dr Norman, for joining us here on the program.

If this New York Times investigation is to be believed, it really does paint a president in financial distress.

And it's also just such a contrast to the image that Trump has really painted and sold to the American people of himself as a self made businessman, as this, you know, very successful billionaire.

And instead we see that instead, he's really struggled quite significantly and has really used his losses to his own gain in terms of getting out of taxes.

So, um, this really is a very different image that he's tried to paint in the past.

So I suppose the question is, uh, if this is a different image that he has painted and if these taxes are accurate, does it actually dent his base or Dent?

You know the people who are likely to vote for him in about four weeks time?

And again, this is coming from The New York Times.

It's a source that Trump likes to frame as part of the liberal media that has an agenda against him and so we'll probably be hearing him use that kind of framing quite a bit in his response to this story.

And that usually goes pretty far with his base as well, in terms of people seeing the president being a victim of this kind of which hunt from the media and not necessarily looking specifically at the details, whereas liberals and Democrats, of course, will be really doing the opposite and really trying to lean into the details of this story to see what has been going on over the past.

You really, over the past decade, What for you are some of the key takeaways from this investigation.

It's important to underscore the investigation has been ongoing, I think, for four years by the Times.

This is a very, very thorough investigation they've been doing and the takeaways coming out of it for some are confirming.

I think what a lot of Ah lot of Trump's critics have thought from the start that I, in fact his finances were probably more questionable than he was letting on, which really just again goes align with Trump's general sense of of not always being honest with the American people.

So I think for me just that sense of underscoring again that since can Trump be trusted is a big question going into the campaign are going to the election.

And, of course, just what what wrong doing actually was taking place?

Was there, you know, improper write offs and are those things that the Democrats can take advantage of as we get closer to November?

I suppose the other question is from this particular investigation, because, of course, we haven't seen the actual taxes.

Is there anything there that's incriminating or perceived to be illegal you?

So far, what we've seen today from the Times is Mawr showing again this, um, this very different image of Trump and also showing a lot of the tactics that he used to be able to use his losses to his own advantage with taxes.

So far, what we've seen from the reports are not making legal allegations.

But with that said, there are a number of suits early in process in the past, with Trump regarding his business empire, and this will probably pivot a lot more attention on those and potentially in current new ones to arise as well on.

We expect Mawr to be coming out in terms of details from the times in this investigative report over the next couple weeks.

 Julie Norman, Thank you very much for joining us here on the program. 