Donald Trump responded on Sunday morning to a New York Times report that he may not have paid federal income tax for 18 years, tweeting: “I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them.”
The Clinton campaign called the report about the Republican nominee’s taxes a “bombshell”, and called for him to release his full tax returns. Bernie Sanders, once Hillary Clinton’s opponent for the Democratic nomination and now a supporter of her campaign, said the report was evidence of “a corrupt political system in this country”.
Trump did not deny the report, which was based on documents from his 1995 tax return, mailed to the newspaper by an anonymous source.
Susanne Craig, the reporter to whom the documents were sent, told CNN on Sunday morning the Trump camp had “threatened to sue the paper, saying tax returns are confidential, and we made a decision last night to go forward.”
Asked if the Times was “sitting on more documents”, Craig said: “We’re doing a lot of reporting around this. So we’re going to keep on going.” Asked if the paper knew who had sent the documents, she offered no comment.
The Times report did not accuse Trump of any illegal practice, but citing analysis by tax experts, suggested that by registering a loss of $916m, the businessman could have canceled out equivalent taxable income until 2013.
Speaking in support of Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders told ABC: “If everyone in this country was a "genius" like Mr Trump and did not pay taxes, we would not have a country.”
“This is exactly why so many millions of Americans are frustrated,” he added to CNN. “They are angry, they are disgusted at what they see as a corrupt political system in this country. You have middle class people working longer hours for low wages, they pay their taxes. They support their schools, they support their infrastructure, they support the military, but the billionaires, no, they don’t have to do that because they have their friends on Capitol Hill. They pay zero in taxes. So Trump goes around and says, ‘Hey, I’m worth billions, I’m a successful business man, but I don’t pay any taxes, but you, you who earn 15 bucks an hour, you pay the taxes. That’s why people are angry and want real change in this country.”
Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, said the report was a “bombshell” which “reveals the colossal nature of Donald Trump’s past business failures and just how long he may have avoided paying any federal income taxes whatsoever.”
”Now that the gig is up,” Mook added, “why doesn’t he go ahead and release his returns to show us all how ‘smart’ he really is?” Cont.
Story from - The Guardian
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