The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Leak reveals Trump’s income tax payments
Journalist claims the information arrived unsolicited by post
President Donald Trump earned $153 million (£123m) and paid $36.5m (£31m) in income taxes in 2005, according to newly disclosed tax documents.
They show the billionaire paid a rate that was effectively just under 25% thanks to a tax he has since sought to eliminate.
The pages from Mr Trump’s federal tax return show the then-real estate mogul also reported a business loss of $103m (£85m) in 2005, although the documents do not provide details.
The forms show Mr Trump paid an effective tax rate of 24.5%, a figure well above the roughly 10% the average American taxpayer hands over each year.
But it is below the 27.4% taxpayers earning $1m a year average, according to data from the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation.
The forms were obtained by journalist David Cay Johnston, who runs a website called DCReport.org, and reported on MSNBC’s the Rachel Maddow Show.
Mr Johnston, who has long reported on tax issues, said he received the documents in the post, unsolicited.
Mr Trump said on Twitter early yesterday: “Does anybody really believe that a reporter, who nobody ever heard of, ‘went to his mailbox’ and found my tax returns? @NBCNews FAKE NEWS!”
Mr Johnston, speaking to ABC’s Good Morning America, said it is entirely possible that he received the returns from Mr Trump himself or someone close to him, saying, “Donald has a long history of leaking things about himself”.
He noted that the real question remains the sources of Mr Trump’s income, saying Mr Trump does not want us to know “who he’s beholden to”.
Mr Trump’s hefty business loss appears to be a continued benefit from his use of a tax loophole in the 1990s, which allowed him to deduct previous losses in future years.
In 1995, he reported a loss of more than $900m (£740m), largely as a result of financial turmoil at his casinos.
The White House hit back even before the release of the documents, saying that publishing the information was illegal.
“You know you are desperate for ratings when you are willing to violate the law to push a story about two pages of tax returns from over a decade ago,” the White House said.