Billionaire businessman Donald Trump appears to have paid zero, or near-zero, in personal income taxes in at least two more years in the early 1990s, according to records from New Jersey’s gambling authorities reviewed by POLITICO.

Trump’s avoidance of income taxes as described in the documents was not illegal but the result of significant losses his hotel and casino holdings sustained during an economic downtown.


“Welcome to the real estate business,” Trump said in an email, responding via his spokeswoman, when asked about not paying income taxes in the early 1990s.

Trump’s lifestyle didn’t suffer terribly during the era. But his creditors did force him to live within an allowance — of $450,000 per month.

Trump’s taxes have become a hot-button political issue in the 2016 campaign as he has broken with historical precedent and so far refused to release any past years of tax returns that might shed light on his complex finances and charitable giving. Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, has called the decision “disqualifying” and Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has vowed to pressure Trump into revealing them.

“It’s none of your business,” Trump told ABC last month when asked what tax rate he pays. “You’ll see it when I release, but I fight very hard to pay as little tax as possible.”

Trump has also said his recent taxes are under audit and that is why he hasn’t released them, telling the Associated Press “there’s nothing to learn from them” anyway.

The Washington Post has previously reported that Trump paid zero in income taxes for two years, in 1978 and 1979, when he turned over his tax returns to apply for a casino license in New Jersey.

The documents reviewed by POLITICO cover Trump’s tax liability in 1991 and 1993, when his hotel and casino holdings were struggling and regulators were closely monitoring his finances. Trump’s “financial stability has been and continues to be of keen interest,” the regulators wrote in one report, given that he had “three casinos bearing his name” in New Jersey.

According to the documents from the New Jersey Division of Gaming Control and the Casino Control Commission, Trump had struck deals with creditors to stay afloat, and the size of his business losses were so significant that they would offset any taxes that Trump (listed by his initials “DJT”) would owe on the forgiven debts.

A section titled “Personal Income Tax Obligations” of a 1995 Division of Gaming Enforcement report on the “Financial Stability of Donald J. Trump” said that, “As of December 31, 1993, DJT had a net operating loss (“NOL”) carry forward of approximately [redacted]. As various lenders cancel all or part of DJT’s debt, he may realize taxable gains. Management has represented that DJT’s NOLs will be more than sufficient to satisfy all anticipated gains.”

In other words, Trump’s losses were large enough to prevent him from owing taxes.

A similar report in 1993 came to the same conclusion about Trump’s tax obligations in 1991. “As various lenders cancel all or part of DJT’s debt, he will in all likelihood realize taxable gains. However, given the [redacted] in carryforward net operating losses (“NOLS”), any tax resulting should be minimal, if any.”

There is nothing illegal about using losses to shield oneself from paying taxes. Indeed, Trump has bragged on the trail that he has leveraged business and tax laws to maximize profits for himself over the years. Nor is it a huge surprise that Trump would not owe significant taxes during the economic slowdown of the early 1990s as his companies teetered near bankruptcy.

Still, it is notable that a man living on $450,000 per month — Trump also had a massive yacht and aircraft at the time — could avoid paying income taxes.

Trump’s finances were leveraged dramatically in the early 1990s, according to the documents. A separate 1991 report from the Casino Control Commission said Trump had $3.6 billion in assets but also $3.4 billion in liabilities, as of September 1990.

Almost none of his holdings were liquid, with only $17.1 million in cash.

Trump has left open the possibility that he will still unveil some tax returns. “When the audit ends, I’m going to present them. That should be before the election. I hope it’s before the election,” he said last month.

Full tax returns would reveal not only how much Trump earns, but what type of deductions he uses to reduce his taxes and how much he gives to charity.

Clinton has released more than three decades worth of tax returns, with the eight most recent years posted on her website.

The most detailed reports on Trump’s taxes come from a 1981 report from New Jersey’s gambling commission, which detailed Trump’s income and taxes from 1975 to 1979.

Trump claimed income of $76,210, $24,594, and $118,530 in 1975-77, and paid federal taxes of $18,714, $10,832, and $42,386 in those years, according to the report. In 1978 and 1979, Trump took losses of $406,379 and $3,443,560, respectively, and paid no income taxes.

“I think it’s kind of crazy that to try to make sense of Donald Trump’s personal financial situation and his business behavior we have to scratch around for these scraps of information when these sort of things should be in the public record,” said Joseph Thorndike, director at Tax History project at Tax Analysts, which compiles candidate tax returns. “I don’t think we should have to beg, infer and guess.”