Trump Tax Returns: Key Takeaways From the Records Release
Associated Press
In the final year of his presidency, Donald Trump reported making no charitable donations. (photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
The former president had a bank account in China, failed to donate in 2020 and claims Democrats ‘weaponized’ his taxes
The thousands of pages of returns were the subject of a prolonged legal battle after Trump broke precedent by not releasing his tax returns while running for, and then occupying, the White House.
Here are some key takeaways from a review of the documents:
Trump had a bank account in China
During a 2020 presidential debate, Trump was asked about having a bank account in China. He said he closed it before he began his campaign for the White House four years earlier.
“The bank account was in 2013. It was closed in 2015, I believe,” Trump said. “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 contradict that account. Trump reported a bank account in China in his returns for 2015, 2016 and 2017.
The returns show accounts in other foreign countries including the UK, Ireland and St Martin in the Caribbean. By 2018, Trump had apparently closed all his overseas accounts other than the one in the UK, home to one of his flagship golf properties.
The returns do not detail the amount of money held in those accounts.
No reported charitable giving in 2020
In the final year of his presidency, Trump reported making no charitable donations. That was in contrast to the prior two years, when Trump reported about $500,000 (£414,060) worth of donations. It is unclear if any of the figures include his pledge to donate his $400,000 presidential salary back to the US government. He reported donating $1.1m in 2016 and $1.8m in 2017.
Money from the arts world
Trump collected a $77,808 annual pension from the Screen Actors Guild and a $6,543 pension in 2017 from another film and TV union, and reported acting residuals as high as $14,141 in 2015, according to the tax returns.
Trump has made cameo appearances in various movies, notably Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, but his biggest on-screen success came with his reality TV shows The Apprentice and The Celebrity Apprentice.
Trump reported paying a little more than $400,000 from 2015 to 2017 in “book writer” fees. In 2015, Trump published the book, Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again, with a ghostwriter. The same year, Trump reporting receiving $750,000 in fees for speaking engagements.
Trump vows payback
Trump broke political tradition by not releasing his tax returns as a candidate or as president. Now Republicans warn that Democrats will pay a political price by releasing what is normally confidential information.
Trump underscored that in a statement on Friday morning, after his returns were made public.
“The great USA divide will now grow far worse,” he said. “The Radical Left Democrats have weaponized everything, but remember, that is a dangerous two-way street!”
Republicans on the House ways and means committee, which has jurisdiction over tax matters and released the Trump documents, warned that in the future the committee could release the returns of labor leaders or supreme court justices. Democrats countered with a proposal to require the release of tax returns by any presidential candidate – legislation that is unlikely to pass, given that Republicans take control of the House next week.
Republicans cannot disclose Joe Biden’s tax returns – because they are already public. Biden resumed the longstanding bipartisan tradition of releasing his tax records, disclosing 22 years’ worth of filings during his 2020 campaign.
