Trump tax records show he may have understated his salary by millions to the IRS

In all, Trump, through his corporate entities, collected just over $4.8 million in 1995 from his casino operations. That seems understated on his tax returns as well. Trump’s New York tax return, as well as the one he sent the IRS, did list $3.4 million in business income in 1995, which is after expenses. But Trump’s casinos were just a portion of his overall Trump Organization, which also included the Trump Tower, a Trump building on Wall Street, a licensing deal for a building at Columbus Circle in New York, Mar-a-Lago, and other properties and licensing deals.

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Not done yet. In 1995, Trump Hotels bought what was then Trump Regency, a hotel that Trump had previously owned himself but lost a few years earlier to the mortgage holder Chemical Bank. As part of the deal, Chemical agreed to cancel $35.9 million in debt that Trump still owned on the property.

Debt relief is supposed to be reported as taxable income, though as my colleague Shawn Tully wrote last month, there are ways to get around it. But by 1995, with a new public company, Trump should have been solidly solvent, and therefore responsible for taxes on any debt forgiveness. Yet, Trump doesn’t appear to have paid taxes on that debt relief either.

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