Biden targets Trump tax as debate looms
Donald Trump attempted to justify minimising his tax payments yesterday as the Democrats argued reports he contributed nothing in federal income taxes for a decade showed he was out of step with ordinary Americans.
The US president said he was ‘‘entitled’’ to leverage business losses and tax credits to limit his tax payments ‘‘like everyone else’’ as he tried to contain the fallout from The New York Times investigation.
Trump continued to deny the reporting was accurate, claimed the information was illegally obtained and said he had paid ‘‘millions of dollars’’ in taxes.
The comments suggested a twopronged strategy: to both delegitimise the reporting, which said he paid no federal income taxes in 11 of the 18 years the paper scrutinised, and to argue that limiting tax payments showed business savviness.
The campaign for Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, released an attack advert going after Trump’s reported payment of just US$750 (NZ$1140) in federal income taxes in 2016, the year he won the election, and again in 2017, his first year in office.
The 30-second video compared the average annual amount certain workers had paid in income tax, such as US$7239 for an elementary schoolteacher, with Trump’s US$750 figure.
Whether the reporting has an impact on the fundamentals of the race remains to be seen. Some political strategists wondered if reports of Trump’s business losses would erode his perceived competency on the economy, while others argued few voters would fundamentally change their minds on the president over the information.
Today Trump and Biden square off for the first time on the debate stage in one of the most hotly anticipated moments of the remaining campaign, with the November 3 election now just five weeks away. The 90-minute clash will see Trump and Biden debate each other in Cleveland, Ohio – traditionally a swing state, though one the president won comfortably in 2016.
Based on the nationwide opinion polls, it is Trump who will be seeking a
game-changer. He has trailed Biden between five and 10 per centage points throughout the last six months .
The president’s preparation for the debate was upended on Monday when The New York Times published its lengthy investigation, saying it had obtained ‘‘tax-return data’’ about Trump stretching over a period of more than two decades.
The president’s tax returns have been some of the most sought after financial documents in American politics in recent years.
The paper said all of the information had been provided by sources with legal
access to it and that more revelations were to come. It did not publish any raw financial documents.
The account spelt out in detail how Trump had allegedly used losses in parts of his business empire, which reportedly is made up of more than 500 entities, to minimise his federal tax bills.
Trump’s reported federal income tax payment of just US$750 in his first year in office paled in comparison to his recent predecessors, Barack Obama and George W Bush, who each regularly paid US$100,000 a year in similar taxes.
– Telegraph Group