How Trump used loopholes to pay $0 in income tax

The last time Donald Trump's tax returns were made public, it was revealed he had paid zero dollars in income taxes to the federal government, The Washington Post reports. The information was included on a 1981 report by New Jersey gambling regulators, which showed that for at least two years in the 1970s, Trump had used a tax-code loophole to report negative income:

Trump has defended his privacy regarding his finances as being "none of your business" and is poised to become the first major party presidential nominee in 40 years to refuse to release his returns. By declining to make the information public, it is unknown how much money Trump makes, gives to charity, or how he uses deductions and shelters to squeeze out of paying taxes. Trump has said before that he fights "very hard to pay as little tax as possible."

"At some point, he could be the tax collector-in-chief. He'd supervise the IRS, making sure all of us live up to our own tax responsibilities," tax policy expert Joe Thorndike told The Washington Post. "People deserve to know ... how a person like that plays the game."

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Mitt Romney has previously blasted Trump over his hesitation to release financial information, claiming that Trump's returns could very well be hiding "a bombshell of unusual size."