TRUMP SAYS HE ‘PAID MILLIONS IN TAXES’
U. S. PRESIDENT RESPONDS TO NEW YORK TIMES EXPO SÉ REGARDING WEALTH, DEBT
WASHINGTON • U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he paid “many millions of dollars in taxes” and that he had many more assets than debt.
In a series of Twitter posts, the Republican president responded to a New York Times weekend report that he paid just $ 750 in federal income taxes in both 2016 and 2017, after years of reporting heavy losses from his business enterprises.
“I paid many millions of dollars in taxes but was entitled, like everyone else, to depreciation & tax credits,” he wrote. “I am extremely under leveraged — I have very little debt compared to the value of assets.”
The president, who will face Democratic rival Joe
Biden on Tuesday night for their first presidential debate, said he had “extraordinary assets” and boasted a “very IMPRESSIVE” financial statement.
The Times reported on Sunday that Trump has hundreds of millions of dollars in debt amid chronic business losses that he uses to avoid paying taxes, It said it has obtained tax- return data covering more than two decades for Trump and his businesses.
Trump’s reported debts raise national security issues, U. S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday, as the public deserves to know to whom he owes money because it could be used as leverage against him. “To me this is a national security question,” she told MSNBC.
Trump refused to release his federal income tax returns the first time he ran for president in 2016, a departure from decades of tradition among presidents and presidential candidates.
He said it is because he is under audit by the Internal Revenue Service. The agency has said there is no reason he cannot release his taxes while under audit.
Alan Garten, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, said in a statement that “The New York Times’ story is riddled with gross inaccuracies.”
“Over the past decade the President has paid tens of millions of dollars in personal taxes to the federal government,” Garten said. He gave a similar statement earlier to The Times, which said it believed Garten was conflating federal income taxes with other kinds of taxes, including Social Security and Medicare taxes.
The documents do not show Trump’s total net worth, the Times said, and did not show any previously unknown business connections to Russia.
But they do chart the arc of his business over the past 15 years, and reveal that Trump’s TV show The Apprentice earned $ 427 million in cash, but Trump spent it on a string of cash-only purchases of golf courses and resorts — most of which have bled money.
I HAVE VERY LITTLE DEBT COMPARED TO THE VALUE OF ASSETS.