Donald Trump argues he was entitled to limit tax payments as Democrats go on the attack

Donald Trump has attempted to justify minimising his tax payments as the Democrats argued reports he contributed nothing in federal income taxes for a decade showed he was out of step with ordinary Americans. The US president said in a tweet he was “entitled” to leverage business losses and tax credits to limit his tax payments “like everyone else” as he tried to contain the fallout from the New York Times investigation. Mr Trump continued to deny the reporting was accurate, claimed the information was illegally obtained and said he had paid “millions of dollars” in taxes. He also hinted he could release financial statements showing his wealth, though gave no timeline. The comments suggested a two-pronged strategy: To both delegitimise the reporting, which said he paid no federal income taxes in 11 of the 18 years the paper scrutinised, and argue that limiting tax payments showed business savviness. The campaign of Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, released an attack advert going after Mr Trump’s reported payment of just $750 dollars in federal income taxes in 2016, the year he won the election, and again in 2017, his first year in office. The 30-second video compared the average annual amount certain workers had paid in income tax, such as $7,239 for an elementary school teacher and $5,283 for a firefighter, with Mr Trump’s $750 figure.

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