President Donald Trump once complained on Twitter about people who don’t pay any taxes. Just one problem: As documents obtained by The New York Times revealed, Trump himself was among them for many years. Trump suffered $1.17 billion in losses between 1985 and 1994 ― among the biggest losses by any individual in the nation ― and paid no taxes at all in eight of those 10 years as a result, the newspaper reported. Trump’s 2012 tweet is being shared anew in light of the report: HALF of Americans don't pay income tax despite crippling govt debt...http://t.co/gDAUj0Kt — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 23, 2012 The seven-year-old message also generated plenty of new replies: There is a Trump tweet for everything. https://t.co/90BByhc6X3 — Miranda Yaver (@mirandayaver) May 8, 2019 This scolding is doubly delicious now that everyone knows: (1) Trump doesn't pay income tax; and (2) He just slapped $22,000,000,000,000+ of crippling govt debt on America's Chinese VISA card. #TrumpTaxes https://t.co/Cofmckh9D0 — Mrs. Betty Bowers (@BettyBowers) May 8, 2019 I don’t pay income tax. pic.twitter.com/lGxCqcNa4h — Donald J. Trump ᴄᴏʀʀᴇᴄᴛᴇᴅ (@DCorrected) May 8, 2019 This tweet...still not aging well. — Terry the Censor (@TerrytheCensor) May 8, 2019 And some Americans don't pay their debts or income tax. pic.twitter.com/p2HTNOvqEN — Bronco Bama (@BronckoBamma) May 7, 2019 What was that about "crippling govt debt," failing @realDonaldTrump?!? ...doesn't look like you paid many taxes! #AmericansForImpeachment #TrumpTaxes https://t.co/RdxR07YdL3 — Warrior for Truth (@2MuellerWeTrust) May 8, 2019<doc-sep>President Trump on Saturday took to Twitter and weighed in on the ongoing battle over his tax returns. “I won the 2016 Election partially based on no Tax Returns while I am under audit (which I still am), and the voters didn’t care,” Trump tweeted. “Now the Radical Left Democrats want to again relitigate this matter. Make it a part of the 2020 Election!” The president’s tweet comes a day after the New York Times reported: “The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee subpoenaed the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service on Friday, disregarding the Treasury secretary’s refusal this week to hand over six years of President Trump’s personal and business tax returns and demanding access.” Last month, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders declared that the current members of Congress are “not smart enough” to review Trump’s tax returns. “I don’t think Congress, particularly not this group of Congressmen and women are smart enough to look through the thousands of pages that I would assume that president Trump’s taxes will be,” she said during an appearance on Fox News Sunday. “My guess is most of them don’t do their own taxes, and I certainly don’t trust them to look through the decades of success that the president has and determine anything.” Trump is the first president in decades not to volunteer the information, saying his returns are under audit. Notably, there is no law that prohibits returns under review from being shared.<doc-sep>After a bombshell New York Times investigative report on Tuesday revealed that as a businessman between 1985 and 1994, Donald Trump reported massive business losses totaling almost $1.2 billion, Trump took to Twitter on Wednesday morning to defend taking those write-offs on his tax returns. But in a pair of tweets, he may have admitted to committing tax fraud, experts say. In one Twitter post, Trump described taking the "massive write offs and depreciation" in order to get out of paying taxes as "sport." "You always wanted to show losses for tax purposes....almost all real estate developers did - and often re-negotiate with banks, it was sport," Trump wrote on Twitter. But Trump's business losses were not routine deduction amounts, as The Inquisitr reported. During that 10-year period, Trump "lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer," according to the Times report. In fact, in the years 1990 and 1991, Trump's staggering losses were "more than double" those claimed by taxpayers who came in just behind Trump in the loss department. In the year 1991 alone, Trump's losses accounted for 1 percent of all business losses taken by all American taxpayers in that year, according to Times reporter Susanne Craig, writing on Twitter. New Yorker magazine staff writer Ben Taub, on his own Twitter account, paraphrased Trump's tweets. "I committed massive tax fraud, for 'sport.'" Getty Images | Craig Allen Trump Taj Mahal Hotel and Casino was one of three Trump casinos to go into bankruptcy. University of Southern California Law School Professor Orin Kerr also took to Twitter to respond to Trump's tweets asking, "Does he know tax fraud is illegal?" Trump, also in his Twitter posts, referred to his practice of taking staggering business losses on his tax returns as a "tax shelter," as Time reported. Though the documents obtained by The New York Times covered only the 10-year period from 1985 to 1994, earlier reports by the same paper indicate that Trump's practice of claiming colossal business losses continued after that time frame. During the 2016 presidential election campaign, The Times obtained a copy of Trump's actual tax return from the following year, 1995. According to that tax return, Trump's businesses in tax year 1995 took their most incredible losses yet — $916 million. The loss was so massive that it likely allowed Trump to avoid paying any taxes at all for up to 18 years afterward, according to an NBC News account. According to Tuesday's Times report, Trump did, in fact, pay no tax in eight of the 10 years between 1985 and 1994, due to his overwhelming business losses. But in his Wednesday tweets, Trump appears to say that those losses were not real and claimed only to deceive the government into allowing him to pay little or none of the taxes he would have otherwise been required to pay. According to Think Progress, though Trump appears in his Twitter posts to frankly confess his practice of taking massive losses, he also dismisses the New York Times report as a "Fake News hit job."<doc-sep>WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump cited "write offs," "depreciation," tax shelters and accounting gamesmanship as reasons for business losses in the 1980s and 1990s after The New York Times reported details of his tax returns. The Times said Trump's businesses lost more than $1 billion from 1985 to 1994 – and he was able to avoid paying taxes in eight of those 10 years. Trump disputed the Times story but did not specify his objections. "Real estate developers in the 1980’s & 1990’s, more than 30 years ago, were entitled to massive write offs and depreciation which would, if one was actively building, show losses and tax losses in almost all cases," Trump tweeted early Wednesday. Democrats questioned how he was able to stay afloat as he pursued his highly publicized business career. Noting that a congressional committee seeks Trump's tax returns, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., tweeted that the Times story "underscores the importance of the Administration giving the Congress access" to those documents. Contempt vote:House Judiciary Committee set to vote to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt Trump's tax retuns: Trump avoided paying taxes for 8 years after more than $1 billion loss over a decade, report says The newspaper reported that "year after year," Trump "appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer." In a pair of tweets, Trump said it was routine for real estate developers to report losses – "sometimes considered 'tax shelter' " – which was done in part to renegotiate loans from banks. Trump said, "You always wanted to show losses for tax purposes....almost all real estate developers did - and often re-negotiate with banks, it was sport." Some financial analysts disputed Trump's analysis, including one of the co-authors of The New York Times report. "Some fraction of Donald Trump’s losses can be attributed to depreciation. We found most of it was just bad business," tweeted Susanne Craig, a money reporter for the Times. Trump said, "The very old information put out is a highly inaccurate Fake News hit job!" Trump reported business losses of $46.1 million in 1985 and a total of $1.17 billion in losses over a 10-year period beginning that year, the Times article said. The Times said it obtained the data via "printouts from Mr. Trump’s official Internal Revenue Service tax transcripts, with the figures from his federal tax form, the 1040, for the years 1985 to 1994." Unlike presidents since the Watergate era of the early 1970s, Trump has refused to release his tax returns. This week, the Treasury Department refused a request from the House Ways and Means Committee for six years of Trump's returns and some business filings. The House committee cited a law saying Congress can review individual tax filings to help it develop tax laws. Trump allies said Democrats want the returns only to look for dirt on the president. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said he didn't think the House panel's request has a "legitimate legislative purpose." Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, indicated he may sue to get Trump's taxes, saying Mnuchin's objection is not valid. "He didn’t pay taxes for years and lost over $1 billion dollars – how is that possible?" said Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., a member of the Ways and Means Committee. "How did he keep getting more money, and where on earth was it all going? We need to know now." Like what you're reading? :Download the USA TODAY app for more<doc-sep>
Trump Decried Those Who Didn’t Pay Taxes In 2012 Tweet — But Records Show He Didn’t Pay Any For Approximately a Decade President Donald Trump has a mixed and seemingly hypocritical record when it comes to who should or should not pay their taxes. After reporting from the New York Times revealed Tuesday evening that Trump spent nearly a decade of not paying any income taxes to the U.S. government, a 2012 tweet he made is now receiving renewed scrutiny. Trump implied in this 7-year-old tweet that it was inappropriate for nearly half of Americans to not pay any income tax “despite crippling [government] debt” held by the U.S. government. HALF of Americans don't pay income tax despite crippling govt debt…http://t.co/gDAUj0Kt — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 23, 2012 Yet reporting from the Times showed that for a decade, Trump did the exact same thing he complained about in 2012. From 1985 to 1994, Trump lost $1.17 billion in assets. During that time period, in which Trump saw net losses, the business mogul little to no federal income taxes. The taxes that were unearthed by the Times do not, of course, represent the most recent years of Trump’s earnings, which are at the center of the debate regarding whether the president has a conflict of interest when it comes to being able to serve in his position of authority while holding onto his financial assets. But the tax returns do detail how Trump has a “do as I say, not as I do” attitude about taxes: when it comes to working-class people who don’t pay taxes, Trump takes a critical tone; yet the president himself spent approximately a decade not paying them himself. We also know, based on Trump’s debate performances with his Democratic Party rival Hillary Clinton, that Trump didn’t pay taxes on another year of income. During the debates, Clinton pointed out that Trump was defying decades of precedent by not allowing the American public to look at his tax records from previous years. But, as Clinton noted, there were a few years available for us to look at when Trump was attempting to get a casino license. Those years of returns “showed he didn’t pay any federal income tax,” Clinton said, reported CNBC. Trump responded to Clinton’s attack. “That makes me smart,” he said.