President Donald Trump on Wednesday said a New York Times report on his tax information and finances was based on "very old information," tweeting that "almost all real estate developers" posted large losses in their tax returns.
"You always wanted to show losses for tax purposes....almost all real estate developers did - and often re-negotiate with banks, it was sport," he wrote. "Additionally, the very old information put out is a highly inaccurate Fake News hit job!"
On Tuesday, The Times reported Trump lost more than $1 billion from 1985 to 1994. That was based off of tax information the publication acquired from a source with legal access to the documents, The Times wrote, noting that the information consisted of printouts from Trump's official IRS transcripts from those years.
The Times reported Trump posted a total of $1.17 billion in losses over the decade, and after comparing his information with other top earners, The Times wrote that it "appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer."
Those losses allowed Trump to avoid paying federal income tax for most of that decade.
Meanwhile, the House Ways and Means Committee and Treasury Department is locked in a battle over Trump's federal tax returns as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin this week refused to provide Trump's tax information to the panel. Democrats are expected to counter by either subpoenaing the IRS or filing a lawsuit for the returns.
Trump has refused to make his tax returns public, becoming the first president since the Watergate era to shield that information from voters.
