US presidential debate: Trump says he paid millions of dollars in taxes

US President Donald Trump has said he “paid millions of dollars in taxes” in a face-off with Democratic challenger Joe Biden at the first Presidential debate in Cleveland.

The New York Times last week said Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016, the year he won the election. The report, which cited tax return figures extending more than 20 years, said he had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years because he reported losing much more money than he made.

Trump had dismissed the report as “totally fake news.”

Trump tried to deflect the news about his taxes, and his Republican allies kept their silence. Joe Biden, the Democrats’ presidential candidate, posted a video noting that the President paid less in income taxes than everyday Americans like teachers, firefighters and nurses.

During the presidential debate, moderator Chris Wallace again asked the President about the NYT report. “I paid millions of dollars in taxes. Millions of dollars in income tax,” he said. Then he said he attempted to avoid taxes as much as possible, referencing tax breaks that he and others try to claim.

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“I don’t want to pay tax,” he said. He said private investors like himself, “unless they’re stupid, they go through the laws and that’s what it is.”

“I paid $38 million one year, I paid $27 million one year,” Trump said, while Biden repeatedly called for the President to “show us your tax returns.”

“Before I came here, I was a private developer. I was a private business people. Like every other private person, unless they’re stupid, they go through the laws and that’s what it is,” said Trump.

Biden promised he will “rip up” the major tax cuts Trump introduced in 2017 if he were to be elected president.

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Shortly before the debate, he wrote on Twitter: “I paid many millions of dollars in taxes but was entitled, like everyone else, to depreciation & tax credits.”

“I am extremely under leveraged — I have very little debt compared to the value of assets,” the US President said in a tweet on September 29.