Rachel Maddow promised a bombshell on her MSNBC show Tuesday night with the tease of Donald Trump‘s tax returns. What she didn’t tell us in the teases, but later revealed on the show, was that the tax return was from 2005. Although the documents were more than a decade old, they did give us some information.
The two pages of his federal tax returns showed that Trump wrote off more than $100 million in business loses to cut his taxes.
They also showed that he paid $38 million in federal income taxes on his reported income of $150 million. He was able to save millions by claiming loses from the previous year.
The White House issued a response, even before the show went on the air, that said, “You know you are desperate for ratings when you are willing to violate the law to push a story about two pages of tax returns from over a decade ago.” (The New York Times)
Fasho Thoughts:
- The tax returns were sent anonymously to David Cay Johnston, a one-time New York Times reporter who covered the IRS and wrote a book on Trump.
- Johnston and others speculated that the returns could have been sent by Trump or his associates as a distraction.
- Trump broke a long tradition followed by presidential candidates when he refused to release his taxes.
- The leaked tax forms are stamped “client copy.”
Source: Radio One / Don Juan Fasho
