Trump Paid Less in Taxes Than a Schoolteacher or a Nurse

Trump Paid Less in Taxes Than a Schoolteacher or a Nurse

Trump Paid Less in Taxes Than a Schoolteacher or a Nurse

What’s most shocking about the president’s taxes are the things that are legal.

Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky
Pocket
Email

EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

The new revelations about President Trump’s tax returns confirm what we already suspected. Trump might be a lousy businessman, but he is a master tax-dodger. He paid no federal income taxes in 10 of the 15 years before his election. In 2016 and 2017, he paid all of $750 a year. The self-proclaimed billionaire paid less than many of the lowest-paid workers in America, many of whom are risking their lives providing essential services during the pandemic.

That said, Trump’s tax returns don’t expose anything shockingly new about his character. We already knew he was a bounder surrounded by grifters. What’s truly shocking about the returns is what is legal, not what is illegal. The returns are another glimpse at how our corrupt political system is rigged by the wealthy and gamed by the greedy.

Yes, Trump’s tax-dodging may include illegal or fraudulent claims. The IRS is auditing a dubious $72.9 million tax refund he claimed in 2010, which erased years of tax payments. He apparently writes off his 200-acre family estate in Bedford, N.Y., as an investment property, even though it serves as a family home. He also writes off mysterious consulting fees, including some paid to his daughter Ivanka when she was a full-time employee of his companies.

Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

Disobey authoritarians, support The Nation

Over the past year you’ve read Nation writers like Elie Mystal, Kaveh Akbar, John Nichols, Joan Walsh, Bryce Covert, Dave Zirin, Jeet Heer, Michael T. Klare, Katha Pollitt, Amy Littlefield, Gregg Gonsalves, and Sasha Abramsky take on the Trump family’s corruption, set the record straight about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s catastrophic Make America Healthy Again movement, survey the fallout and human cost of the DOGE wrecking ball, anticipate the Supreme Court’s dangerous antidemocratic rulings, and amplify successful tactics of resistance on the streets and in Congress.

We publish these stories because when members of our communities are being abducted, household debt is climbing, and AI data centers are causing water and electricity shortages, we have a duty as journalists to do all we can to inform the public.

In 2026, our aim is to do more than ever before—but we need your support to make that happen. 

Through December 31, a generous donor will match all donations up to $75,000. That means that your contribution will be doubled, dollar for dollar. If we hit the full match, we’ll be starting 2026 with $150,000 to invest in the stories that impact real people’s lives—the kinds of stories that billionaire-owned, corporate-backed outlets aren’t covering. 

With your support, our team will publish major stories that the president and his allies won’t want you to read. We’ll cover the emerging military-tech industrial complex and matters of war, peace, and surveillance, as well as the affordability crisis, hunger, housing, healthcare, the environment, attacks on reproductive rights, and much more. At the same time, we’ll imagine alternatives to Trumpian rule and uplift efforts to create a better world, here and now. 

While your gift has twice the impact, I’m asking you to support The Nation with a donation today. You’ll empower the journalists, editors, and fact-checkers best equipped to hold this authoritarian administration to account. 

I hope you won’t miss this moment—donate to The Nation today.

Onward,

Katrina vanden Heuvel 

Editor and publisher, The Nation

Ad Policy
x