Trump Lashes Out Over 2005 Tax Return Story, Blasts Reporter
WASHINGTON (AP) — The journalist who received a copy of a portion of President Donald Trump's 2005 tax returns says Trump doesn't want the American people to know who "he's beholden to."
In an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America" on Wednesday, journalist David Cay Johnston says it's possible that either Trump or someone close to him sent him two pages of Trump's tax return.
Johnston, who says he received the documents by mail, unsolicited, revealed his findings Tuesday on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show."
He says it's possible that he only received two pages of the returns because "somebody isn't going to take the time to copy the entire tax form."
But he notes that the documents still leave many questions unanswered, including "who he's beholden to and what the sources of his income are."
7:10 a.m.
President Donald Trump is criticizing the reporter who released a portion of Trump's 2005 tax return, casting doubt on the reporter's account of how he obtained the form.
The tax forms were obtained by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston, and reported on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show" Tuesday. Johnston, who has long reported on tax issues, said he received the documents in the mail, unsolicited.
But in a tweet Wednesday, Trump asked, "Does anybody really believe that a reporter, who nobody ever heard of, "went to his mailbox" and found my tax returns? @NBCNews FAKE NEWS!"
Trump has refused to release his taxes, saying he is under routine IRS audit.
The returns showed that Trump payed a roughly 25 percent effective tax rate thanks to a tax he has since sought to eliminate.
3:30 a.m.
President Donald Trump earned $153 million and paid $36.5 million in income taxes in 2005, paying a roughly 25 percent effective tax rate thanks to a tax he has since sought to eliminate, according to newly-disclosed tax documents.
The pages from Trump's federal tax return show the then-real estate mogul also reported a business loss of $103 million that year, although the documents don't provide detail. The forms show that Trump paid an effective tax rate of 24.5 percent, a figure well above the roughly 10 percent the average American taxpayer forks over each year, but below the 27.4 percent that taxpayers earning 1 million dollars a year average were paying at the time, according to data from the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation.
The tax forms were obtained by journalist David Cay Johnston, who runs a website called DCReport.org, and reported on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show." Johnston, who has long reported on tax issues, said he received the documents in the mail, unsolicited.
Trump's hefty business loss appears to be a continued benefit from his use of a tax loophole in the 1990s, which allowed him to deduct previous losses in future years. In 1995, Trump reported a loss of more than $900 million, largely as a result of financial turmoil at his casinos.
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