Washington: US President Donald Trump said on Monday Trump he paid many millions of dollars in taxes but was entitled to depreciation and tax credits and also said he was under-leveraged, having more assets than debt.
The Republican president was responding to a New York Times report that he paid just $750 in federal income taxes in both 2016 and 2017, after years of reporting heavy losses from his business enterprises.
I paid many millions of dollars in taxes but was entitled, like everyone else, to depreciation & tax credits, he wrote on Twitter. I am extremely under leveraged –
I have very little debt compared to the value of assets. Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, asked whether Trump owed money to foreign interests, following an article on his financial records by the New York Times.
It alleges Trump paid only $750 in federal income tax in both 2016 and 2017. The President called the report fake news, the BBC reported on Monday.
Speaking on NBC, Pelosi said the report showed that this president appears to have over $400 million in debt.
To whom? Different countries? What is the leverage they have? she asked, adding: ‘So for me, this is a national security question.’
The fact that you could have a sitting president who owes hundreds of millions of dollars that he’s personally guaranteed to lenders, and we don’t know who these lenders are, she said, and suggested that Trump may be indebted to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
What does Putin have on the president politically? Personally? Financially? According to the explosive report in the New York Times – which says it obtained tax records for Trump and his companies over two decades — Trump paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years. It adds that the president is personally responsible for more than $300m in loans, which will come due in the next four years.
It does not suggest Trump received any previously unknown income from Russia, though it said that the president had earned some money from foreign sources. The records reveal chronic losses and years of tax avoidance, it says.
In a tweet on Monday, the president accused the media of bringing up his taxes and other nonsense with illegally obtained information and only bad intent.
He said he had paid many millions of dollars in taxes but received tax credits as well. Responding to the accusations of losses, Trump added he had very little debt compared to the value of his assets.