Washington : Donald Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes in the year he was elected US president whereas he paid $1,45,400 taxes in India in 2017, according to a media. According to New York Times report, Donald J Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750.
The report was released just few days before Donald Trump’s first presidential debate with Democratic rival Joe Biden on Tuesday and weeks before the November 3 presidential election. Mr Trump entered the 2016 presidential race as a Republican and was elected in a surprise victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
According to the NYT investigative report, Trump has long fought to keep private tell a story fundamentally different from the one he has sold to the American public. Trump paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years as he reported be lost more money than he made. However, The US president immediately dismissed the report as “totally fake news”.
The report revealed that in his first two years in the White House, Trump’s earned $73 million from foreign business. It received revenue majorly from golf properties in Scotland and Ireland. Some of the revenue came from licensing deals in countries like Philippines ($3 million), India ($2.3 million) and Turkey ($1 million).
The report stated, “In 2017, the president’s $750 contribution to the operations of the US government was dwarfed by the $15,598 he or his companies paid in Panama, the $145,400 in India and the $156,824 in the Philippines.”
“His reports to the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) depicts a businessman who earns a great deal but suffers from chronic losses that he aggressively employs to avoid paying taxes. The records show that he depends more and more on making money from businesses that put him in potential and often direct conflict of interest with his job as president.
Meanwhile, at a White House press briefing on Sunday, Trump dismissed the NYT report as “totally fake news” and claimed that the media house has tried the same thing previously too.
US presidents are not required by law to release details of their personal finances. However this was changed ever since Richard Nixon has done so. Trump, who has fiercely guarded his tax filings, is the only president in modern times not to make them public.