Yesterday, the New York Times reported Donald Trump may have paid no federal income tax for nearly two decades. Leaked excerpts of Trump’s 1995 tax returns showed huge losses that the real estate mogul could have used to offset other income and zero out his income tax liability for many years.
Donald Trump may have paid no federal income tax for nearly two decades.
The Times published one page from each of Trump’s 1995 New York, New Jersey and Connecticut personal tax returns in which Trump claimed a staggering $916 million of net operating losses, which he transferred from his federal tax return for the year.
Net operating losses arise when a business has deductible expenses greater than its gross income for the year. For a business organized …show more content…
Additional losses in years after 1995 could have wiped out even more ($16 million of new losses arose in 1995, with the balance of the losses carried over from prior years).
The Trump campaign’s response said nothing about whether the candidate has ever paid income taxes. It only claimed that he “paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes.”
Leaked excerpts of Trump’s 1995 tax returns showed huge losses that the real estate mogul could have used to offset other income and zero out his income tax liability for many years.
Presumably, Trump’s losses are largely attributable to the disastrous performance of his businesses in the early 1990s, including his Atlantic City casinos, the Trump Shuttle and the Plaza Hotel. He reported huge losses for these enterprises to casino regulators. But we really do not know how and when the losses arose or whether the IRS accepted them, as the numbers on the returns are
Donald Trump may have paid no federal income tax for nearly two decades.
The Times published one page from each of Trump’s 1995 New York, New Jersey and Connecticut personal tax returns in which Trump claimed a staggering $916 million of net operating losses, which he transferred from his federal tax return for the year.
Net operating losses arise when a business has deductible expenses greater than its gross income for the year. For a business organized …show more content…
Additional losses in years after 1995 could have wiped out even more ($16 million of new losses arose in 1995, with the balance of the losses carried over from prior years).
The Trump campaign’s response said nothing about whether the candidate has ever paid income taxes. It only claimed that he “paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes.”
Leaked excerpts of Trump’s 1995 tax returns showed huge losses that the real estate mogul could have used to offset other income and zero out his income tax liability for many years.
Presumably, Trump’s losses are largely attributable to the disastrous performance of his businesses in the early 1990s, including his Atlantic City casinos, the Trump Shuttle and the Plaza Hotel. He reported huge losses for these enterprises to casino regulators. But we really do not know how and when the losses arose or whether the IRS accepted them, as the numbers on the returns are