President Donald Trump’s partial tax return, which was leaked to a US television network on 14 March, shows he paid $38m (£31m) in tax on more than $150m (£123m) of income in 2005
The two pages from Trump’s 2005 return were revealed on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddox Show, and shows that he also declared $103m is losses however, did not give any details on income sources.
The return shows that Trump paid $5.3m in federal income tax and an extra $31m in what is called alternative minimum tax (AMT), a rate of just under 25%.
The AMT was introduced to ensure that the wealthiest of taxpayers pay a fairer share of tax. As one of his election pledges, Trump promised to eliminate the AMT ie, campaigning for a change that would benefit other people like him.
The White House has said that publishing the tax return was against the law but the host of the show, Rachel Maddox, has argued that the network was exercising its right to freedom of speech under the First Amendment to the US Constitution to publish information in the public interest.
Journalist David Cay Johnston received the documents in the post, which came from an anonymous source.
Before the broadcast aired, the White House issued a statement which said: ‘You know you are desperate for ratings when you are willing to violate the law to push a story about two pages of tax returns from over a decade ago.’
Trump refused to release his tax returns throughout the general election and thereafter.
