Donald Trump’s tax returns for 2015 to 2020 were released by a House panel on Friday, providing the first complete look into the former president’s tax records for the years he was in office.
Donald Trump paid no federal personal income tax
The documents reveal that in 2020, Donald Trump paid no federal personal income tax and reported large losses at his businesses in multiple years thanks to favorable deductions. Congress’s nonpartisan tax experts have said some of those deductions warrant further scrutiny.
The returns also give more insight into how Donald Trump’s businesses benefited from the 2017 tax overhaul, which included breaks and expanded write-offs for some top earners.
The release of the tax returns comes just days before Democrats relinquish their House majority, which will end much of their ability to investigate Trump.
The tax returns of former US President Donald Trump were released by the Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee on Friday, providing the most detailed look to date at Trump’s finances over six years, including his time in the White House.
The release of the documents marks the culmination of a years-long legal battle, as Trump consistently refused to share details about his financial history, breaking with the transparency followed by all of his predecessors since the Watergate era.
The tax returns include individual returns from Trump and his wife, Melania, as well as returns from Trump’s business entities from 2015 to 2020.
The documents reveal how Trump used the tax code to lower his tax obligation and provide information about foreign accounts, charitable contributions, and the performance of some of his business ventures, which had largely remained shielded from public scrutiny.
What Donald Trump reported on his tax returns
The records show that Trump limited his tax liability by offsetting his income against corporate losses and millions of dollars in business expenses, asset depreciation, and other deductions.
Trump paid $641,931 in federal income taxes in 2015, the year he began his campaign for president, but just $750 in 2016 and 2017, according to a report released last week by Congress’s nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. He paid nearly $1 million in 2018, but only $133,445 in 2019, and nothing in 2020, the year he unsuccessfully sought re-election.
The tax returns also detail Trump’s foreign holdings, including bank accounts in China, Ireland, and the UK from 2015 to 2017. Starting in 2018, Trump only reported an account in the UK. The returns also show that Trump claimed foreign tax credits for taxes paid on various business ventures around the world, including licensing arrangements for the use of his name on development projects and his golf courses in Scotland and Ireland.
In 2018, according to figures from the Joint Committee on Taxation, Trump paid more in foreign taxes than he did in net federal income taxes.
The documents also reveal Trump’s charitable donations, which fluctuated during his presidency but represented only a small portion of his income in his final years.
In 2020, the year the coronavirus pandemic hit the economy, Trump reported no charitable donations at all. In 2019 and 2018, he reported writing checks for about $500,000 in donations.
In earlier years, the numbers were higher, with $1.8 million in 2017 and $1.1 million in 2016. It is unclear whether the reported sums included Trump’s $400,000 annual presidential salary, which he had said he would forgo and claimed he donated to various federal departments.
