Olivier Douliery/AP
- The New York Times reported President Donald Trump only paid $750 in federal income tax the year before his presidency and in his first year in office.
- Business Insider compared the reported federal income tax paid by Donald Trump to the tax returns released by other recent presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, and Joe Biden.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
The New York Times reported this week that President Donald Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes in both 2016 and 2017. This is much lower than the amount former President Barack Obama paid in 2011, the year before his second election, and the income taxes paid by other previous presidential candidates.
As the conversation about Trump’s taxes continues after The New York Times’ investigation, Business Insider took a look at what previous presidential candidates paid around the time they were running for president.
To do this, we used presidential candidates’ self-released tax returns that can be found on Tax Notes, a site created by the nonprofit tax publisher Tax Analysts. We looked at returns for Barack Obama in 2011, Mitt Romney in 2011, Hillary Clinton in 2015, and Joe Biden in 2019.
The following chart highlights the amount of federal income tax paid. Trump’s reported figure is significantly lower than the other presidential candidates’ tax payments:
According to The New York Times, Trump’s tax bill comes from subtracting $7,435,107 of his general business credit from his $7,435,857 alternative minimum tax. The New York Times wrote that this tax stops “wealthy people from erasing their tax liability altogether.”
According to former financial advisor Kevin L. Matthews II, Trump's small tax payment is possible because of the "loss carryforward provision in the tax code" that is commonly used by big businesses. Trump also used different tax breaks, such as writing off $70,000 for hairstyling during "The Apprentice."
Trump's taxes have been a topic of conversation since he first ran for president and after Hillary Clinton released her returns in 2016. Trump is the only major candidate since the mid-1970s who has not released his tax returns, according to The Washington Post. Gerald Ford in 1976 did not release his full return but did share a summary, according to NPR. Because of this, The New York Times investigation is a surprising revelation.
Business Insider recently did the math and found that Trump paid as much as a single worker earning just $17,850 in 2016 and $17,900 in 2017 would have paid.
The President was asked about his federal income tax during Tuesday night's presidential debate. Trump said he has paid "millions" in income tax. Biden said Trump takes "advantage" of the tax code and wants to get rid of the tax cuts passed during Trump's first term.
Another way to compare presidential candidates' taxes is to look at effective tax rates, or the share of the candidate's income that he or she paid in taxes. We didn't include Trump in the following chart because his 2016 and 2017 tax returns are not public and therefore we don't have his adjusted gross income:
Biden paid about 30% of his adjusted gross income of $985,233 in 2019. As previously reported by CNN, the effective tax rate for Clinton was around 34% after including self-employment tax. Similarly, the rate would be around 20.5% for Obama if we used his total tax figure.