The president of the United States, Donald Trump, assured on Monday that he had paid millions of dollars to the treasury and that he is hardly in debt, without offering evidence, in response to the revelations of The New York Times newspaper, which on Sunday published that he had hardly paid taxes in recent years and facing debts worth hundreds of millions.
To defend himself against the revelation, Trump wrote a thread of messages on Twitter on Monday in which he responded to the press.
The Fake Media, like in the 2016 Election time, is exposing my Taxes and all kinds of nonsense with information obtained illegally and only with bad intentions. I paid many millions of dollars in taxes but I had the right, as everyone, to depreciation and tax credits, he rightfully pointed out.
Besides, he added, if you look at the extraordinary assets of my property, which the Fake News has not done, I am extremely at an advantage, I have very little debt compared to the value of the assets. Much of that information is registered, but I have been saying for a long time that I may publish the Financial Statements of the time when I announced that I was running for the Presidency, showing all the assets and debts properties.
"These are very AWESOME excerpts, and they also show that I am the only known PRESIDENT who has given up the $400,000 plus annual Presidential Salary!"
The New York Times has had access to the president's tax returns for more than two decades, including his first two years in the White House.
According to the newspaper, the president paid $750 for federal income tax in 2016, the year he won the election, and the same amount during his first twelve months in the White House.
In ten of the fifteen years prior to his ascension to power, he did not have to pay income tax, according to the newspaper, because he alleged that he faced losses greater than income.
Also, The New York Times notes that a battle that dates back to a decade hangs with the Tax Collection Service (IRS), the US Treasury, over the legitimacy of a tax refund for value of $72.9 million that he demanded and that he finally received, after declaring significant losses.
Currently, the IRS is holding an open audit, which if resolved against Trump could cost him about $100 million.
Likewise, the newspaper affirms that the president faces debts worth 421 million dollars, whose payments he will have to assume in the next four years and that they put him at risk of insolvency, if he is reelected for a second term in the November elections.
The campaign of the Democratic candidate for the presidential elections,
Joe Biden, published in the last hours an announcement on Twitter in which he showed the contrast between the taxes paid by the president and those paid by the workers.
"Teachers paid $7,239. Firefighters paid $5,283. Nurses paid $10,216.
Donald Trump paid $750," the former vice president's campaign remarked.
Trump's tax returns have been a matter of dispute in the courts for a long time.
Last July, the country's Supreme Court ordered the president to deliver his tax return to a New York prosecutor who is investigating him, but determined that the House of Representatives, controlled by the Democratic opposition, could not yet access those documents.
The court rulings in the New York and Lower House cases were a draw for Trump, who has resisted making his tax returns public, something that all of his predecessors have done throughout history.