How Trump paid $0 in income tax in 2020

Donald Trump paid no income tax during his last year as president, according to his tax returns, which were released to a congressional committee and are set to be made public within a few days.

Despite pulling in nearly $11 million in interest from investments in addition to his nearly $400,000 salary, Trump did not pay income taxes because he also reported a $16 million loss from his real estate businesses. That loss put the former president almost $5 million in the red for 2020.

That means he didn’t have any taxable income and he didn’t pay anything in income tax.

This pattern of high investment returns offset by high business losses continues throughout the tax returns that the House Ways and Means Committee obtained and released as part of larger reports on the IRS’s presidential audit system this week.

In 2019, Trump reported about $20 million in income from investments, offset by $16 million in real estate losses.