Joining Good Morning America Friday morning, ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos asked Trump what his tax rate is, and Trump simply replied, “It’s none of your business”.
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“The interesting thing about how Trump looks at this stuff is, he sort of compromises his negotiating position right up front by admitting that he doesn’t really think this is really his plan, and that’s something unusual, something I’ve not seen from other political candidates”, says Alan Cole, an economist at the Tax Foundation.
“I first asked you about this in 2011, and you said said you would release your tax returns – you were thinking of running for president – when President Obama releases his birth certificate”.
Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump says his tax rate is “none of your business”, but promises he doesn’t have “Swiss bank accounts” or “offshore accounts”. “You’ll see when I release, but I fight very hard to pay as little tax as possible”.
Trump said then that Romney – who finally released them under pressure – should be proud of his wealth and not hold back his financial information.
“I’m really rich”, Trump emphasizes, repeatedly, on the national stage.
Trump repeated the audit dodge in an interview with the Associated Press last week, adding that he saw no reason to make his returns public because voters don’t care about the issue, and that “there’s nothing to learn from them”.
“I put in financials, 100 pages worth of financials, that show that I built a company that’s worth more than $10 billion”, Trump said.
Others have suggested Trump may have avoided paying any taxes on his income because the tax laws allow so many deductions of owners of real estate. Trump’s tax returns could offer information about how much licensing income he receives, providing new clues about the true value of his brand, according to Thorndike. “You can learn very little from a tax return”. “Further, he could release returns for the years immediately prior to the years under audit”, Romney wrote.
Mrs Clinton, who posted eight years of returns on her website, told supporters at a rally in New Jersey: “When you’re running for president and you become the nominee, that’s kind of expected”. Carswell says Maples persuaded Trump to invite her out with the two of them to make up for the trickery.
Donald Trump won’t share what his tax rate is, but he admitted Friday that he tries to hand over a minimal amount of his money to the government. “But until you get finished, you won’t”. Trump will have an opportunity to float some of the ideas at an energy summit in Bismarck, North Dakota on May 26, Cramer said.
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Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, said earlier this week that Trump was seeking to hide “a bombshell” from the American voters, calling the decision to withhold the records “disqualifying”.
