For four decades, every major-party presidential nominee has released his or her income tax returns, or at least a summary, before the general election.
If Donald J. Trump fails to do so, he would become the first Democratic or Republican nominee to refuse to make a tax disclosure since Richard M. Nixon during his 1968 and 1972 campaigns.
The New York Times obtained three pages of Mr. Trump’s 1995 tax returns, for filings in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, marking the first time any of his actual tax returns have been publicly revealed. They showed more than $900 million in losses that could have allowed him to avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years.
But much about his current finances remains murky because the documents did not include supporting schedules, or any pages from his federal returns, and are from more than two decades ago.
For Mr. Trump, 70, whose unconventional pursuit of the presidency has been based in large measure on his long career as a businessman, a public airing of his most recent declarations to the government about his income could be particularly illuminating. The documents would offer details of his annual earnings, his charitable contributions, his domestic and foreign financial dealings and how much he has paid in taxes — or hasn’t.
Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have released many years’ worth of tax returns. Mr. Trump’s running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, recently disclosed a decade of his returns. And Mr. Trump himself prodded Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, for being sluggish in making his returns public, saying in January 2012 that Mr. Romney would “be better off just to release them now.”
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What We Know
In the absence of any disclosures from Mr. Trump, The New York Times and other news outlets have attempted to fill in the gaps. This is what has been uncovered from available records:
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1995
Tax returns obtained by The Times showed $916 million in business losses that Mr. Trump could use to wipe out that amount in taxable income for up to 18 years.
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1991 and 1993
The New Jersey Casino Control Commission reports for these years show that Mr. Trump claimed losses that could have allowed him to avoid paying income taxes. This was a time when Mr. Trump’s Atlantic City casinos faced significant financial trouble. The losses may have helped Mr. Trump reduce or eliminate his tax bill in future years.
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1984
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1978 and 1979
Although he claimed to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars at the time, Mr. Trump paid no federal income taxes, according to a 1981 report by the New Jersey commission, assessing his fitness for a casino license. He took advantage of deductions available to real estate developers and, claiming losses from partnerships, Mr. Trump reported a “negative income” of $406,379 in 1978 and another loss of $3.4 million in 1979 — thus avoiding any tax liability for those two years.
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1975-1977
Mr. Trump paid more than $71,000 in federal income taxes on about $218,000 of taxable income earned during these years, according to the 1981 casino commission report.
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Donald Trump has continued to decline to release his tax returns despite mounting pressure from both Democrats and Republicans. A look at some of the explanations for keeping his taxes private. Credit Video by By SHANE O’NEILL and AINARA TIEFENTHÄLER on Publish Date October 01, 2016 What Mr. Trump Has SaidOver the course of the campaign, Mr. Trump has made various statements about his income tax returns, how much he pays and his plans to make them public — or not to do so. Here are the highlights:
During the first presidential debate, when Mrs. Clinton mentioned how Mr. Trump had paid no taxes more than two decades ago, he responded, “That makes me smart.” When she suggested that he still does not pay federal taxes, Mr. Trump gave a curious retort: “It would be squandered, too, believe me.”
In the “spin room” after the debate, Mr. Trump said his statements during the exchange were not an acknowledgement that he pays no federal taxes. “Of course I pay federal taxes,” he told reporters. Federal taxes do not necessarily refer to income taxes, but could include, for example, Social Security taxes.
The primary reason Mr. Trump has offered for not making his tax returns public is that he says they are under a routine audit by the Internal Revenue Service. His campaign released a letter in March from his lawyers stating that his filings going back to 2009 remain under audit. But the agency has said that there is no requirement for a taxpayer to keep the forms secret during an audit.
Mr. Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., told The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that releasing the voluminous returns, which he said covered 12,000 pages, would “distract” from his father’s message.
In February, Mr. Trump tweeted a photo of himself signing his tax return.
Signing a recent tax return- isn’t this ridiculous? pic.twitter.com/UdwqF4iZIZ
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2016 -
What We Do Not Know
Without the ability to look over Mr. Trump’s taxes, a number of questions are unanswerable:
• Real estate developers like Mr. Trump get particularly advantageous treatment under the tax code, according to experts. They can claim, for example, sizable tax write-offs for business losses. How much has he taken advantage of these kinds of breaks, particularly in recent years, and what effect has that had on the amount of income tax he paid?
• How much money does Mr. Trump make, and what might that say about his net worth?
• What foreign business ventures are included in the filing and what does that say about where Mr. Trump has financial interests?
• What charitable contributions has Mr. Trump deducted, if any?
