This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A new report revealing that Donald Trump lost more than $1bn in a decade is fueling heated Democratic demands for Trump to hand over his tax returns.

The House of Representatives has formally requested six years of Trump’s personal and business tax returns, but the treasury department has refused to comply.

The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said on Wednesday that the New York Times’ reporting underscores the need for the Trump administration to hand over the documents.

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“It would be useful to see his tax returns – as the law says,” Pelosi said in an appearance on Washington Post Live. “It doesn’t say may, should, could, under certain circumstances. It says shall give those tax returns to the ways and means chairman.”

The New York Times obtained Internal Revenue Service tax transcripts from 1985 to 1994, which show that even as Trump was selling himself as a hard-charging billionaire business tycoon, he was recording massive losses. The House is seeking more recent returns.

Over the 10 years obtained by the newspaper, Trump reported a total of $1.17bn in losses. In many of the years, he appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer.

Trump tax returns: Democrats to fight for release after Mnuchin refusal Read more

Trump paid nothing in income taxes for eight of the 10 years, the documents show.

Trump on Wednesday attacked the report on Twitter as “a highly inaccurate Fake News hit job” even as he essentially confirmed its accuracy.

“Real estate developers in the 1980s and 1990s, more than 30 years ago, were entitled to massive write-offs and depreciation which would, if one was actively building, show losses and tax losses in almost all cases,” he said in a tweet, admitting that it was a “tax shelter”.

“You always wanted to show losses for tax purposes,” he said. “It was sport.”

The Times reported that Trump lost more than $250m in 1990 and again in 1991 – more than double the losses of the closest taxpayers recorded in an IRS sampling of high-income Americans.

While shedding cash from his core businesses – hotels, casinos and retail space in apartment buildings – he embarked on a brief career as a corporate raider, buying up stock in companies and announcing his intention to take them over. The stock price would jump on his supposed plans, and then he would sell it off. But the tactic stopped working when traders realized Trump was bluffing and would not follow through on his takeover threats.

The documents also show that while Trump was racking up huge losses, his father, Fred Trump, was in the black. His returns for showed a positive income of $53.9m, the Times reported. He only had one large loss, for $15m invested in one of Donald Trump’s apartment projects.

The battle in Congress is over Trump’s more recent returns, which he has refused to release in a break with the practice of all recent presidents.

Pelosi said Democrats may “go directly to court” to challenge the refusal, and joked about suggestions that they have the treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, arrested for refusing to hand over the documents.

“We do have a jail down in the basement of the Capitol. But if we were arresting all of the people in the administration, we would have an overcrowded jail situation, and I’m not for that,” she said.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand earlier this week tweeted of the administration’s refusal to hand over the tax returns: “Donald Trump, what are you afraid of the American public finding out about you?” In response to the Times’ report, she deadpanned: “Oh.”

“Turns out NBC gave Trump the wrong show. He should have been on The Biggest Loser,” added the Florida Democrat Andrew Gillum.

• This article was amended on 9 May 2019. An earlier version stated that Trump reported $1.7bn in losses. It was $1.17bn.