By David Goldman, Jeremy Herb, Jeanne Sahadi and Maegan Vazquez, CNN
Six years of Donald Trump’s federal tax returns released Friday show the former president paid very little federal income tax in the first and final year of his presidency, citing massive losses that helped restrict his tax bill, among other revelations.
The statements, long shrouded in secrecy, were made public Friday through the House Ways and Means Committee, the culmination of a war over their disclosure that reached the Supreme Court. They verify a report released through the Joint Committee on Taxation that Trump claimed gigantic previous losses and his presidency that he postponed to lessen or virtually eliminate his tax burden. For example, his statements show that he carried out a loss of $105 million in 2015 and $73 million in 2016.
The thousands of pages of documents from the former president’s non-public and pro-federal tax returns, which covered the years 2015 to 2020, provide a complex internet of uncooked knowledge about Trump’s finances, raising many questions about his wealth and source of income that may simply be haunted through Trump’s listeners and political opponents.
Key points from documents reviewed through CNN include:
Trump’s comments also show that the former president made several claims that listeners dispute.
The Joint Committee on Taxation, which reviewed the returns, reported that Trump had claimed a slew of questionable pieces on his tax returns, adding mind-boggling amounts of interest he claims he earned from loans to his children that the bipartisan committee says could simply implicate Trump by disguising gifts.
The JCT argued that an auditor investigate the loan agreements Trump made with his children, adding interest rates. If the interest Trump claims to have charged his children was not at the market rate, for example, it could be considered a gift to them. taxes, forcing you to pay a higher tax rate on money.
In the year of his presidency, for example, Trump claimed to have earned precisely $18,000 in interest on a loan he said he gave to his daughter Ivanka Trump and $8,715 in interest from his son Donald Trump, Jr. From 2017 to 2019, Trump said he earned precisely $24,000 from his son Eric Trump, and Eric paid him $19,605 in interest in 2020.
This raises the question of whether “the loans were in smart religion arm duration transactions, or whether the transfers were disguised gifts that may cause a gift tax and a denial of interest deductions through similar borrowers,” the JCT said in its report.
“It’s to look at circular numbers, very rare,” said Martin Sheil, a former special officer who oversees the IRS Criminal Investigation Unit. “An auditor would need to look at payments, loan agreements and interest rates. “
There are also doubts about Trump’s directory of statements about the amount of expenses and profits of the company.
For example, in 2017, Trump claimed that his company DJT Aerospace LLC, which operates Trump’s private helicopter, claimed $42,965 in revenue. He also claimed exactly the same amount, $42,965, in expenses. In other words, every dollar: for one dollar: what the company earned was canceled through company expenses, such as payroll, fuel and other items. That left the company with 0 sources of revenue and no taxes.
“Overhead equivalent to the overall source of revenue is a statistical impossibility,” Shiel said, adding that the numbers are not evidence that anything illegal has been done. “It just doesn’t happen. “
In its report, the JCT raised several similar issues. For example, he noted that IRS auditors were investigating several of the so-called giant dubious pieces in Trump’s tax returns for which the regulator sought Trump to provide supporting evidence to back up his claims.
The comments received through the Democratic-led Ways and Means Committee just weeks ago after a long legal war that lasted about 4 years. such as Social Security numbers.
The release of the tax returns follows a lawsuit over documents that had been voluntarily made public through former U. S. presidents. U. S. returns, which Trump said may have far-reaching implications.
“Democrats deserve to have never done it, the Supreme Court deserves never to have passed it, and it’s going to lead to terrible things for so many people,” Trump said after the statement.
“Trump’s tax returns show once again the success I proudly had and how I was able to use depreciation and other tax deductions as an incentive to create thousands of jobs and beautiful structures and businesses. “
Other Republicans have also criticized Democrats’ efforts to seek tax returns as politicians, with Texas Rep. Kevin Brady, the committee’s top conservative, saying the release would amount to “a harmful new political weapon that goes beyond the former president and reverses decades of privacy protections for average Americans that have existed since Watergate reform. “
At the committee’s closed-door assembly last week, Republicans warned that releasing Trump’s tax returns through Democrats could lead to retaliation once Republicans enter the House next year, such as attacking the taxes of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.
“Countless other people have told me things they fear about relationships with President Biden’s family circle and how they think he and his family circle get rich because of their political power. And they ask for oversight and accountability for this,” the representative said. Said. Jason Smith, a Republican from Missouri, according to excerpts the GOP released at the meeting. “Do we want to end all this?
Trump said he had offshore bank accounts between 2015 and 2020, a bank account in China between 2015 and 2017, according to his tax returns.
Trump asked to report the accounts to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). The documents show the former president had foreign bank accounts in countries including the United Kingdom, Ireland and China.
The bank account in China, which was reported via The New York Times in 2020, was linked to Trump International Hotels Management’s business push in the country, Trump Organization lawyer Alan Garten said at the time.
The 2020 disclosure of industrial relations in China came as Trump’s crusade sought to paint Biden as a “puppet” of China. Biden’s tax returns and currency disclosures have shown no business transactions or sources of revenue from China.
The statements also show that Trump paid more foreign taxes than federal sources of U. S. income taxes. He was in the U. S. in 2017, the first year of his presidency.
In 2017, Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes in the U. S. The U. S. government was due to the giant deferred losses it had claimed in recent years, canceling out nearly all of its notable U. S. taxes. U. S. However, Trump paid nearly a million dollars in taxes to foreigners. countries that year.
The fact that Trump paid taxes abroad is surprising in itself, but it shows how Trump’s business and business interests are spread across the globe and how those corporations are subject to local tax laws and regulations.
In his tax return, Trump indexed trade income, taxes, expenses or other notable monetary pieces in Azerbaijan, Panama, Canada, India, Qatar, South Korea, United Kingdom, China, Dominican Republic, United Arab Emirates, Philippines, Grenada, U. S. Territory and Canada. U. S. Puerto Rico, Georgia, Israel, Brazil, Saint Martin, Mexico, Indonesia, Ireland, Turkey and Saint Vincent.
During his presidency, Trump pledged to donate his entire $400,000 salary to charities each year. He boasted of giving part of his quarterly salary to various government agencies.
“While the press doesn’t like to write about it, and I don’t want to, I donate my $400,000. 00 annual presidential salary to other agencies during the year,” Trump tweeted in March 2019.
If you donated your 2020 salary, you didn’t claim it on your taxes. Of the six years of tax returns released through the House Ways and Means Committee, 2020 was the only year Trump did not list any charitable donations.
Trump’s finances took a hit in 2020, likely due to the pandemic and a lack of demand for vacations and hotel accommodations. Trump reported large donations to charities in 2018 and 2019, which helped reduce the amount he owed by millions of dollars of origin. the income he had declared over the years.
But Trump posted a massive adjusted loss of $4. 8 million in 2020, a year, that eliminated his federal tax liability. Trump paid $0 in federal income taxes in 2020.
The Joint Committee on Taxation raised questions about the accuracy of some massive charitable deductions claimed through Trump on tax returns from previous years, adding large donations of unsubstantiated money. acres of assets called Seven Springs in North Castle, New York. The donation, which was made to a land trust, is in the midst of the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation of thieves into the Trump organization’s finances.
Trump claimed the 2017 Republican tax plan he championed and signed would charge him and his family circle “a fortune. “It’s unclear, but it appears to have capped the amount you can claim in a portion of your complex tax return.
The 2017 tax law limited the deduction of state and local taxes, known as SALT, to $10,000 according to the year. In previous years, taxpayers were allowed to deduct more from their SALT payments. Although the law was passed in 2017, it did not apply until fiscal year 2018.
In 2018, Trump recorded $10. 5 million in state and local taxes, but he can only deduct $10,000 from his taxes. In 2019, Trump paid $8. 4 million in SALT but capped at $10,000. claimed the maximum allowed of $10,000.
By comparison, in 2016 and 2017, Trump was able to deduct particularly more from state and local taxes. For example, in 2016 and 2017, it deducted $5. 2 million each year in SALT payments.
Some Democrats have criticized the SALT cap on the 2017 tax law for targeting citizens of the Northeast and West who have some of the highest asset taxes in the country. The Tax Foundation found that asset tax deductions capped in 2017 in the past — third of all state and local tax deductions. But Trump defended the provision, saying the cap was mandatory even if it would damage his own finances.
However, it’s unclear how much the SALT cap hurts Trump. Although this specific deduction had a cap, Trump claimed other deductions that limited the amount of federal source of income taxes he had to pay.
The Ways and Means Committee, which is guilty of overseeing the IRS and drafting tax policy, sought the returns under Section 6103 of the U. S. tax code. U. S. Presidents Audit Program
The committee found that the IRS opened only one “mandatory” audit during Trump’s tenure: for his 2016 tax return. And that didn’t take place until the fall of 2019, after President Richard Neal, a Massachusetts Democrat, first sent a letter asking the IRS for Trump’s tax returns and information. The report calls the presidential audit program “inactive. “
“The studies that were done regarding the mandatory audit program are nonexistent,” Neal said last week after the committee’s vote.
Republicans on the committee argued that Democrats stated that “personal tax data is not required to publicly disclose to replace the needs of the presidential audit program. “
A Republican dissident warned Friday that “damaging Democratic precedent will lead the American public to demand other people’s tax returns. “
Last week, the House passed a bill that would reform the presidential audit procedure in a largely symbolic vote before Republicans win a majority in the new Congress. The bill is not expected to pass the Senate until the new Congress is sworn in.
This story has been updated with more reports.
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