In a bombshell report from The New York Times published on Tuesday, Donald Trump is further exposed as a failed businessman – despite using his business career as a political crutch during his presidential campaign.
The Times obtained a decade of Trump tax documents that show the president lost over $1 billion on “troubled business deals” from 1985 to 1994 – “far bleaker” than was previously recognized.
As the report notes, “The data — 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 — represents the fullest and most detailed look to date at the president’s taxes, information he has kept from public view.”
The New York Times points out that while the documents “did not obtain the president’s actual tax returns, it received the information contained in the returns from someone who had legal access to it.”
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The information shows that Trump lost so much money over that decade-long period that he was able to avoid paying taxes eight out of ten years.
The Times added, “Mr. Trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer … when it compared his results with detailed information the I.R.S. compiles on an annual sampling of high-income earners.”
More from the eye-popping report:
The numbers show that in 1985, Mr. Trump reported losses of $46.1 million from his core businesses — largely casinos, hotels and retail space in apartment buildings. They continued to lose money every year, totaling $1.17 billion in losses for the decade.
In fact, year after year, Mr. Trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer, The Times found when it compared his results with detailed information the I.R.S. compiles on an annual sampling of high-income earners. His core business losses in 1990 and 1991 — more than $250 million each year — were more than double those of the nearest taxpayers in the I.R.S. information for those years.
Over all, Mr. Trump lost so much money that he was able to avoid paying income taxes for eight of the 10 years. It is not known whether the I.R.S. later required changes after audits.
No wonder Trump wants to keep his tax returns concealed
While The New York Times concedes that it did not obtain Trump’s tax returns – which the president continues to illegally keep secret – it does reveal some of the information contained in those documents.
And while that information is a damning indictment of Trump’s failed and corrupt business career, it’s likely just the tip of an iceberg that this president doesn’t want the American people to see.
Donald Trump may have slapped his name on a book called “The Art of the Deal,” but the more we learn about his financial history, the clearer it is that his business career was a massive failure – and that he spent a lifetime skirting the law to enrich himself.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
