Trump paid $1.5 million in taxes during presidency, but $0 in 2020, report shows

WASHINGTON - In his first three years as president, Mr Donald Trump paid US$1.1 million (S$1.5 million) in federal income taxes before paying no tax as his income dwindled and losses once again mounted in 2020, according to

tax data released on Tuesday

by a House committee.

The data, which includes details of Mr Trump’s federal tax returns from 2015 through his full term (2017-2021) in the White House, shows that he began his presidency suffering the sort of large business losses that had defined much of his career, and paid almost nothing in income tax. But his fortunes changed in 2018, as he reported US$24.3 million in adjusted gross income and paid nearly US$1 million in federal tax.

Mr Trump’s tax returns show he was in the black the next year as well, reporting US$4.4 million in income and paying US$133,445 in tax. But in 2020, as the United States staggered under the coronavirus pandemic, his finances reversed course: Mr Trump reported a loss of US$4.8 million and zero income tax.

The fresh details of Mr Trump’s taxes came from two reports released late on Tuesday by the House Ways and Means Committee, which had waged a legal battle to obtain the records from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that went all the way to the Supreme Court. The reports contain the committee’s summation of its findings but not the raw tax returns, which are expected to be released in coming days.

The new information adds to what is publicly known about Mr Trump’s income tax history, something he had fought for years to keep hidden. Two years ago, The New York Times detailed tax-return data extending over more than two decades for Mr Trump and the hundreds of companies that make up his business organisation. Those records told a story fundamentally different from the one he had sold to the American public.

His reports to the IRS portrayed a businessman who took in hundreds of millions of dollars a year, yet racked up chronic losses that he aggressively employed to avoid paying taxes. But while the personal income tax data analysed by the Times ran only through his first year in the White House, 2017, the information released on Tuesday encompasses his entire presidency.

Mr Trump paid just US$750 in federal income tax and reported US$12.9 million in losses in his first year as president, in keeping with a long pattern of reporting losses and paying little or no taxes. The newly released data shows that in 2018, his sudden burst of income occurred largely because he had sold properties or investments at a gain of US$22 million. He also appears to have exhausted business losses he had been rolling over year after year to reduce his taxable income. The precise source of the income gain is not clear from the reports.

By 2020, however, Mr Trump had returned to reporting losses. In fact, despite the capital gains that boosted his bottom line in 2018, the entirety of his core businesses – mostly real estate, golf courses and hotels – continued to report losses every year, totalling US$60 million during his presidency. He was able to recoup US$5.47 million because he had made millions of dollars in estimated tax payments that he ended up not owing.

Tuesday’s report also raises questions about some of Mr Trump’s business practices, and the committee has requested that the IRS investigate some of them further. Among them are his charitable contributions.

The tax records previously obtained by the New York Times show Mr Trump made significant charitable donations over the years, but the vast majority of them came in the form of land donations, often after he had exhausted efforts to develop it.

The new tax data shows that while in the White House, Mr Trump made charitable contributions in cash, something the House committee said warrants further investigation.

“We would have inquired as to whether the large cash contributions were supported by required substantiation,” the report said.

The Times’ findings were cited several times in the report, and helped shape the direction of the committee’s investigation.

For instance, Mr Trump owns an estate in Westchester County, New York, called Seven Springs. For years it was classified as a personal residence. The tax records obtained in 2020 by the Times showed that in 2014, Mr Trump reclassified the estate as an investment property.

Since then, he has written off US$2.2 million in property taxes as a business expense – even as the law allows individuals to write off only US$10,000 in property taxes a year.

On Tuesday, the committee revealed that the IRS was looking at this tax maneuver.

The reports also showed that Mr Trump continued to collect large sums of interest income, a total of US$38.1 million during his presidency. They do not disclose the source of that income, but the tax returns previously obtained by the Times showed that through 2017 nearly all of his interest income came from his share of profits earned by a partnership that is controlled by Vornado Realty Trust.

The partnership owns two valuable office towers: 1290 6th Ave in Manhattan; and 555 California St in San Francisco. Mr Trump, who has a 30 per cent share in the partnership, has no authority over its management, and it has consistently been his strongest-performing asset.

Meanwhile, the US congressional panel probing the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol was to wrap up its work on Wednesday with a final report outlining its case that Mr Trump should face criminal charges of inciting the deadly riot.

The report, to be issued online, is expected to be more than 1,000 pages long, based on nearly 1,200 interviews over 18 months and hundreds of thousands of documents, as well as the rulings of more than 60 federal and state courts. NYTIMES, REUTERS