Trump Used Same Tax Breaks as Amazon to Obliterate His IRS Bill
- Trump lost $1.17 billion in 80s, 90s, New York Times reports
- Trump says losses were sound tax policy. ‘It was sport.’
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President Donald Trump complains that large corporations, such as Amazon.com Inc., are shirking their tax responsibilities. Yet for at least a decade, Trump paid none or very little in federal income taxes by exploiting some of the same generous tax breaks that the online retail giant and others have used to reduce IRS bills.
Trump’s businesses generated huge losses, and his hotel and casino properties were eligible for large depreciation write-offs that meant he paid taxes for only two years between 1985 and 1994, according to tax records obtained by the New York Times. Trump, then a real estate developer, racked up $1.17 billion worth of losses in that time, according to the documents.