Trump paid no income taxes in 10 of 15 years, New York Times reports

U.S. President Donald Trump paid no federal income taxes in 10 of the past 15 years, according to a report Sunday in The New York Times.

Trump, who has fiercely guarded his tax filings and is the only president in modern times not to make them public, paid $750 US in taxes to the federal government the year he was elected, 2016, and $750 US again his first year in office.

Speaking at a news conference at the White House, Trump dismissed the report as "fake news" and said he has paid taxes, though he gave no specifics.

The disclosure, which the Times said comes from tax return data it obtained extending over two decades, comes at a pivotal moment ahead of the first presidential debate on Tuesday and weeks before a divisive election.

The president vowed that information about his taxes "will all be revealed." But he offered no timeline for the disclosure and made similar promises during the 2016 campaign on which he never followed through.

In fact, the president has fielded court challenges against those seeking access to his returns, including the U.S. House, which is suing for access to Trump's tax returns as part of congressional oversight.

A lawyer for the Trump Organization, Alan Garten, and a spokesperson for the Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press on the report.

Garten told the Times that "most, if not all, of the facts appear to be inaccurate."

He said in a statement to the news organization that the president "has paid tens of millions of dollars in personal taxes to the federal government, including paying millions in personal taxes since announcing his candidacy in 2015."

During his first general election debate against Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, Clinton said that perhaps Trump wasn't releasing his tax returns because he had paid nothing in federal taxes.

Trump interrupted her to say, "That makes me smart."

WATCH | New York Times reports Trump's tax avoidance, financial losses:

New York Times reports Trump’s tax avoidance, financial losses

4 years ago

Duration 2:04

A New York Times report about U.S. President Donald Trump’s taxes going back decades found he only paid $750 in personal income tax in 2016 and 2017, and paid no taxes for 10 of the previous 15 years.