Donald Trump's Taxes Finally Revealed? 'Times' Claims Candidate May Have Avoided Paying Taxes for 18 Years

The Times reports it received an anonymous package containing three pages of what appear to be part of Trump's 1995 tax returns

Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty

Donald Trump may have avoided paying more taxes for up to 18 years because of a nearly $1 billion loss he took in 1995, according to a report published Sunday night by the New York Times.

The Times reports it received an anonymous package containing three pages of what appear to be part of the Republican presidential candidate’s 1995 tax returns.

Trump responded by calling the documents “illegally obtained” and claiming that the Times is an “extension” of Democrat Hillary Clinton‘s campaign.

“Mr. Trump is a highly-skilled businessman who has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required,” a statement to the Times said. “That being said, Mr. Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes. Mr. Trump knows the tax code far better than anyone who has ever run for President and he is the only one that knows how to fix it.”

A separate statement from Trump’s lawyer also promised “prompt initiation of appropriate legal action.”

The Times hired tax analysts to examine the documents and they found that Trump would have been able to use the $916 million loss on his businesses to avoid paying federal taxes on up to $50 million a year of taxable income for 18 years.

They said that if Trump used the loss to avoid taxes, he would have been well within the laws to do so. The documents showed no evidence of wrongdoing by Trump, the experts told the Times.

The now-80-year-old tax preparer listed on the tax return verified that the documents appear to be authentic, according to the Times.

Within an hour of the Times report being released, #LastTimeTrumpPaidTaxes began trending on Twitter.

Trump has famously broken with tradition and refused to release his tax returns, saying that is unable to because he is under IRS audit.

In last Monday’s debate, Clinton hammered Trump on the subject of his tax returns – saying he may be withholding them because he doesn’t want the public to know he paid no tax.

The Clinton campaign released a statement after the Times published its report, calling the leak a “bombshell.”

“In one year, Donald Trump lost nearly a billion dollars. A billion. He stiffed small businesses, laid off workers, and walked away from hardworking communities. And how did it work out for him? He apparently got to avoid paying taxes for nearly two decades – while tens of millions of working families paid theirs,” the statement said.