The return wasn't the key. Not even close. (That it took Maddow more than 20 minutes into her show to get to the numbers meant that she was scooped on her own scoop.)

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First, the basics: Trump made more than $150 million in 2005 and paid $38 million in taxes that year, according to the two-page summary materials mailed to Johnston this week.

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Now, the history: Trump has repeatedly said that he did everything he could to pay as little tax as possible — a position, he insisted, that not only made him smart but also one that lots and lots of voters seemed to agree with. “I fight very hard to pay as little tax as possible,” Trump told ABC in May 2016.

And because of Trump's refusal to release his tax returns, there has long been speculation that he may not have paid any taxes from the mid-1990s — when we know he reported more than $900 million in losses on his tax returns — until the mid-2000s. (For much more on that, check this out.)

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The 2005 tax return shows that the latter supposition is simply not true. Trump paid $38 million in taxes, not $0. And the return also suggests that Trump, as he said, did what he could to lower his tax burden. He paid an effective tax rate of 25 percent, far below the top tax bracket — 35 percent — for individuals at that time.

In short: We didn't learn anything we don't already know about Trump. Yes, he is very wealthy. Yes, he — like virtually all very wealthy people — looks for holes in the tax code to lower his overall taxable income. (Sidebar: As a non-wealthy person, I do the same thing.)

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For all the hoopla surrounding the unearthing of these documents, there simply was no smoking gun — or anything close to it — here. A brief scan of Trump's financial status a decade ago shows about what you would expect it to show. Nothing nefarious, nothing untoward.