The President’s Taxes

The Daily

• Episode: The President’s Taxes
• Website: The Daily
• Feed URL: http://rss.art19.com/the-daily
• Duration: 00:29:10
• Published: 2020-09-29 11:55

Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig, investigative reporters for The Times, have pored over two decades and thousands of pages of documents on Donald J. Trump’s tax information, up to and including his time in the White House.

What they found was an existential threat to the image he has constructed about his wealth and lifestyle. The tax documents consistently appeared to call into question the business acumen he has cited in his presidential campaign and throughout his public life.

The records suggest that whenever Mr. Trump was closely involved in the creation and running of a business, it was more likely to fail. They show no payments of federal income taxes in 11 of 18 years that The Times examined, and reveal a decade-long audit by the Internal Revenue Service that questions the legitimacy of a $72.9 million tax refund. They also point to a reckoning on the horizon: The president appears to be personally on the hook for loans totaling $421 million, most of which is coming due within four years.

We speak to Russ and Susanne about their findings and chart President Trump’s financial situation.

Guest: Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig, investigative reporters for The New York Times.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily

Background reading:

• Long-concealed records on Mr. Trump’s tax information reveal struggling properties, vast write-offs, an audit battle and hundreds of millions in debt coming due.
• Here are some of the key findings from the previously hidden tax information.
• While the president’s Republican allies have mostly remained silent on the situation, Democrats have pounced.