Report: Trump paid $750 in income taxes

New York Times obtained years of financial data

The president on Sunday denied a report by the New York Times on records it obtained about Trump’s business and personal finances.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump denied a news report Sunday that he paid only $750 in personal federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017, but did not provide evidence and again refused to release his tax returns.

Trump told reporters at the White House that “actually I paid tax,” but said he would not release returns on his own because they are under IRS audit, an excuse he has used for years.

“I paid a lot and I paid a lot of state income taxes, too,” Trump said. “New York State charges a lot and I paid a lot of money in state.”

The New York Times reported Sunday that Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes in 2016, the year he won the presidency, and another $750 in 2017, his first year in office. The Times said Trump paid no income taxes in 10 of the previous 15 years, “largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.” The Times said 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.”

Trump has refused to release tax returns. He is embroiled in a battle with New York prosecutors over his records.

The Times said it plans to publish additional stories based on the trove of data it obtained. The Times said it obtained the records from sources with legal access to them.

Democrats quickly questioned the legality of Trump’s tax maneuvers.

“This may be why @realDonaldTrump has potential legal problems,” tweeted Democratic strategist David Axelrod. “If you claim massive losses to avoid paying federal income taxes but inflate your revenues and assets on bank documents for loan purposes, wouldn’t that constitute fraud?”

The president called the story “fake news” and said details about his taxes would “all be revealed.” Alan Garten, a lawyer from the Trump Organization, told the Times that over the past decade, Trump has paid “tens of millions of dollars in personal taxes to the federal government.”