Trump boasts about 'brilliantly' using the tax laws

Donald Trump on Monday defended his aggressive use of tax laws that likely resulted in him not paying any personal income taxes for nearly two decades, crediting himself for “brilliantly” working the system.

“As a businessman and real estate developer, I have legally used the tax laws to my benefit and to the benefit of my company, my investors and my employees. I mean, honestly, I have brilliantly — I have brilliantly used those laws,” Trump said during a rally in Pueblo, Colorado. “I have often said on the campaign trail that I have a fiduciary responsibility to pay no more tax than is legally required, like anybody else, or put another way: to pay as little tax as legally possible. And I must tell you, I hate the way they spend our tax dollars.”



His comment comes days after a bombshell New York Times report that, citing portions of his 1995 tax return, revealed the now-Republican presidential nominee lost $916 million that year, which may have allowed him to avoid paying personal income tax for up to 18 years.


Trump framed the report as “an alleged tax filing from the 1990s at the end of one of the most brutal economic downturns in our country’s history,” explaining that the conditions then for real estate developers was “almost as bad as the Great Depression of 1929 and far worse than the Great Recession of 2008.”

But while his competitors sank during that turbulent time and others went bankrupt — “which I never did, by the way,” he noted, before asking, “Are you proud of me?” — Trump told the triumphant story of how powerful his brand has become, success he attributed to skill, not luck.

“Today my company’s bigger, stronger, far greater assets than it’s ever had before, more premium properties. We’ve never done better. It’s the strongest we’ve ever been, and we employ thousands of people and over the years have employed thousands and thousands of people, which is the thing that, frankly, makes me most happy,” he said. “That did not happen by chance or luck. It happened by action and talent. Lot of talent. I was able to use the tax laws of this country and my business acumen to dig out of the real estate mess — you would call it a depression — when few others were able to do what I did.”

The real estate mogul said that as a major developer, he faces “enormous taxes,” including taxes from the city, state and federal government, in addition to sales, excise and employee taxes. But he also argued that while it’s in his best interest to pay as little tax as possible, he gives back by investing in communities.

“It’s my job to minimize the overall tax burden to the greatest extent possible, which allows me to reinvest in neighborhoods, in workers and build amazing properties, which fuel tremendous growth in their communities, and always help our great providers of jobs, and we have to help our small businesses,” he said.

Trump highlighted tax reform as a key plank of his campaign, vowing to fix a system he deemed broken and unfair.

“Fixing our broken tax code is one of the main reasons I’m running for president,” he said. “I’ve been saying from the beginning of this campaign how ridiculous, complex and — yes, unfair — the tax system is. It is an unfair system and so complex that very few people understand it.”

He also suggested that the broken tax code is no fault of the IRS. Rather, the blame lies at the feet of “the political class that is owned outright by special interests and lobbyists.”

“Believe me,” Trump said. “It’s these politicians who wrote the tax code and who are constantly adding, revising and changing an already over-complicated set of laws, all at the behest of their favorite donors and special interests, who want special provisions in it — and they won’t take no for an answer. It’s thousands of pages long, and almost no one understands it. The average American would need an army of accountants and lawyers to wade through and wade through it.”

Trump also questioned so-called experts, who he said have no idea what the pages represent “due to their sheer size and complexity of the code.”

“These are experts. They get paid, and they don’t even know what it represents,” he said. “The unfairness of the tax laws is unbelievable. It’s something I’ve been talking about for a long time, despite, frankly, being a big beneficiary of the laws. But I’m working for you now. I’m not working for Trump. Believe me.”

Trump maintained that he understands the tax laws “better than almost anyone, which is why I am one who can truly fix them,” adding: “I understand it. I get it. And that is what I commit to do.”