Trump wanted to release his taxes in 2013 to show how smart he was for paying so little
Trump wanted to release his taxes in 2013 to show how smart he was for paying so little
By Vicky Ward, CNN
Updated at 7:15 PM ET, Mon October 14, 2019
https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/10/14/politics/trump-originally-wanted-to-release-tax-returns/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_allpolitics+%28RSS%3A+CNN+-+Politics%29&r=https%3A%2F%2Fpoliticalwire.com%2F
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New York (CNN) — President Donald Trump's fight to keep his tax returns private is at odds with his own thinking in 2013 and 2014 that releasing them as part of a presidential bid would make him look like a smart businessman who had spent years lowering his taxable income, according to two people with firsthand knowledge of conversations at the time.
Trump ultimately changed his mind after an adviser says he convinced him not to release his taxes, and he has spent years claiming he can't because he's under audit by the IRS.
Sam Nunberg, Trump's political adviser from 2011 to August 2015, tells CNN that during a meeting he had with Trump in the summer of 2013 at Trump Tower, the future president said he was comfortable releasing his tax returns and, even, that he thought it would be a good idea. Nunberg assumed this was because of how little Trump must pay in taxes.
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Third, Nunberg assumed, given his knowledge of the common tax practice of New York real estate magnates, there would likely be a vast discrepancy between Trump's net worth and what his tax returns showed -- and that this might be difficult to explain to voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Nunberg knew that tax laws for commercial real estate developers are notoriously riddled with loopholes peculiar to that industry.
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