Former President Trump paid no income tax during 2020, the final year of his Presidency, because he reported a loss from his business interests.
That’s according to tax records released Tuesday night by the House Ways and Means Committee, which had voted to make six years of Trump’s tax returns public after receiving them from the Treasury Deptarment following a protracted battle with the former President that went all the way to the Supreme Court.
The records also showed that Trump and his wife, Melania, paid some form of tax all four years of his Presidency, but were able to minimize their income taxes because income from his businesses were more than offset by deductions and losses.
The committee questioned the legitimacy of some of those deductions, including one for $916 million. Some committee members further said the tax returns were short on details.
The records also show that during Trump’s four years in office, while he and his wife were liable for self-employment and household employment taxes, they paid a total of $3 million in taxes.
However, deductions enabled them to minimize their income liability in several years. In 2017, for example, Trump and his wife reported adjusted gross income of negative $12.9 million, leading to a net income tax of $750, the records showed.
They reported adjusted gross income of $24.3 million in 2018 and paid a net tax of $1 million.
In 2019 they reported $4.4 million of income in 2019 and paid $134,000 in taxes.
In 2020 they reported a loss of $4.8 million and paid no net income tax.
Ways and Means is expected to release a redacted version of the full six years of returns in the coming days.
Trump, who announced last month that he’s running for reelection in 2024, had broken decades of protocol when he ran for President in 2016 by refusing to release his tax records. Except for Gerald Ford, who released a tax summary, every other President since Nixon has released his full tax returns to the public.
A Trump spokesman said the release of his taxes was politically motivated.
The IRS did not immediately respond to reporters’ request for comment.
