Trump's jaw-dropping statements came after Hillary Clinton launched a fiery attack on the Republican presidential nominee for breaking a four-decade tradition of White House aspirants releasing their federal income tax returns.

Donald Trump said he's "smart" by not paying income taxes — and argued that if he did, the money would be "squandered."

"The only years that anybody's ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax," Clinton said.



Trump quickly retorted: "That makes me smart."

Later, when Clinton told Trump was that "maybe ... you haven't paid any federal income tax for a lot of years," the real estate mogul, who claims to be worth up to $10 billion, said that he was a better steward for his money than the government.

"It would be squandered, too, believe me," Trump said.