No Surprise Here
Trump paid no federal income taxes in 2020, records show
After a yearslong legal fight, the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday released a report on the tax returns of former President Donald Trump, which showed that the former president paid $1.1 million in federal income taxes during his first three years in office — but none in 2020.
The released records documented Trump's finances from 2015 through his time in the White House. An analysis of the Ways and Means Committee's report by The New York Times showed that he began his presidency "suffering the sort of large business losses that had defined much of his career and paid almost nothing in income tax."
It was previously reported that Trump paid just $750 in income taxes in both 2016 and 2017, and the latter year saw him pay more in taxes to both India and the Phillippines than the IRS.
Things began to turn around in 2018, however, when Trump reported $24.3 million in gross income. He paid nearly $1 million in federal taxes on that amount.
But the following two years brought stagnation for Trump, particularly in 2020, when he reportedly suffered a loss of $4.8 million that he apparently used as an impetus to pay no income taxes.
As CNN notes: "Trump has leveraged massive losses he accumulated over the years to zero out his tax liabilities," something that he apparently did a lot in the early 2000s. This continued during his time as president, with the Times reporting that Trump's losses while in the White House totaled $60 million.