In one of its last acts under Democratic control, the House of Representatives on Friday released six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns, dating to 2015, the year he announced his presidential bid. The thousands of pages of financial documents were the subject of a prolonged legal battle after Trump broke precedent in not releasing his tax returns while running for, and then occupying, the highest office in the land. A BANK ACCOUNT IN CHINA The longtime real estate and media mogul with business interests on multiple continents was asked during a 2020 presidential debate about having a bank account in China. He said he closed it before he began his 2016 campaign — a statement his tax returns show was not true. “The bank account was in 2013. It was closed in 2015, I believe,” Trump said during the debate. “I was thinking about doing a deal in China. Like millions of other people, I was thinking about it. I decided not to do it.” The tax returns, however, report that Trump had a bank account in China in 2015, 2016 and 2017. The returns show accounts in other foreign countries over the years, including the United Kingdom, southern Ireland and the Caribbean island nation of St. Martin. By 2018, Trump had apparently closed all his overseas accounts other than the one in the U.K., home to one of his flagship golf properties. The returns don’t detail the amount of money held in those accounts. MANY FOREIGN INVESTMENTS China is one of several countries where Trump reported making money over the years. He reported $38 million in overseas gross income in 2016 and $55 million in 2017, from countries including Azerbaijan, India, Indonesia, Panama, the Philippines, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. This sort of information about potential conflicts of interest for the commander-in-chief of the United States are one reason presidents normally release their tax returns. It’s not clear what that overseas money came from. Trump claimed tens of millions of dollars in losses and expenses in his overseas investments as well, but his liabilities there sometimes were greater than those in the U.S. In 2016, for example, Trump told the Internal Revenue Service that he paid $1.2 million in foreign taxes, while he ended up paying only $750 in U.S. income taxes. WORKING THE SYSTEM It’s been long known that Trump, like many rich people, has been able to exploit the country’s complex tax code to avoid paying as large a share of his income to the federal government as working families do. When he was pressed on not paying federal taxes in a 2016 debate against Democrat Hillary Clinton, Trump retorted, “That makes me smart.” It also highlights the two-tier tax system that allows wealthy people like Trump to take advantage of breaks and loopholes not available to regular households. In 2020, for example, Trump reported owning more than 150 private corporations that claimed losses, sometimes in the millions of dollars. Partly by claiming those losses, Trump reduced his own federal tax income liability to zero that year. Some of those losses were real as the coronavirus pandemic battered the economy. But others reflect special deductions that developers like Trump can take on the depreciation of buildings and equipment. Some losses Trump claimed may […]

The post TRUMP TAXES: Revelations From Release of His Long-Sought Returns appeared first on The Yeshiva World.