Tax returns showing President Trump made more than $150 million and paid $38 million in taxes in 2005 was sent in the mail to journalist David Cay Johnston.
Mr Trump and his wife Melania paid $5.3 million in regular federal tax, a rate of less than 4%, but paid an additional $31 million in “alternative minimum tax” – a tax Trump has previously called to be abolished and promised to repeal the AMT in his campaign tax proposal.
Donald Trump is the first president since the Watergate era to not release his tax returns in full voluntarily.
The White House responded to the leaked tax return.
The taxes were revealed on MSNBC by Rachel Maddow, who defended the legality of publishing the President’s tax return based on the first amendment.
Talking to MSNBC, Johnston suggests Trump may have personally sent the documents given his “long history of leaking material about himself when he thinks it’s in his interest.”
At only two pages long, this is clearly not the tax return in its entirety.
Johnston notes that while this small snippet reveals his types of income, it does not reveal his sources – which the journalist believes to be crucial.
“It means he must be hiding something,” Johnston said.
Michael Beschloss told MSNBC that the reason all presidents since Nixon have released their tax returns “is so you don’t have mysteries about possible sources or possible conflicts of interest.”
Johnson published an analysis of the two pages he received on his website, DCReport.org .
