During his time as president, Donald Trump held accounts in China, the UK, Ireland, and St. Maarten. According to his tax filings, he paid more international tax than the US in his first year in office.
Trump’s Taxes
Trump paid more than $1 million in taxes to other nations in 2017, indicating that his financial ties to foreign countries were still fairly strong. He paid less than $1,000 in federal income taxes for the whole year due to his domestic attempts to avoid paying taxes at the same time.
Nevertheless, throughout the course of his four years in the White House, his personal fortunes began to resemble those of a local businessman far less.
These were some of the conclusions drawn from the ex-tax president’s returns, which were made public on Friday morning after years of Democratic efforts to have Trump reveal them voluntarily or via the legal system.
The House Ways and Means Committee made its public report available along with redacted PDF copies of the original records, with the personal details of Mr. Trump and his wife Melania blacked out before publication. The records cover five years of Donald Trump’s life in total, from 2015 to 2020.
They show the financial situation of a businessman who formerly enjoyed the flexibility to seek international commercial opportunities but had to put those goals on wait in order to pursue a four-year political vengeance fantasy against his Democratic rivals and a hard-right agenda in the White House.
Bank Accounts
Trump had bank accounts in five of the nations included on his 2015 tax forms when he made his first (serious) run for the presidency. These nations included the US, China, the UK, Ireland, St. Maarten, and the Republic of Ireland. The Trump Organization owns or manages properties in three of those countries (plus the US), and The New York Times previously reported on the existence of the China account and Trump’s since-abandoned intentions to grow the Trump Organization there.
But only two of his accounts would last the entire four years of his presidency: those in the US and the UK. According to the records, the St. Maarten account was closed in 2016, and the accounts in China and Ireland would follow a year later.
Given that the former president and his Republican supporters adopted a tough stance against China both during the 2016 presidential campaign and Mr. Trump’s subsequent presidency, the story from China is arguably the most fascinating of the group.
Additionally, they have persisted in criticizing his successor Joe Biden for allegedly not putting up a strong enough diplomatic or economic front against Beijing.
Trump’s political opposition to Beijing’s trade policies and the behavior of Chinese corporations, which he and his administration constantly lambasted, did not override his commercial interests in China, according to his tax returns.
When he assumed office in 2017, the former president transferred the management of his business to a blind trust run by his grown children. Since leaving office, he has primarily retreated to his Florida estates amid a flood of criminal investigations and legal lawsuits, remaining far from the day-to-day management of the business empire.
