Billionaire investor Warren Buffett on Monday offered up some numbers to contradict Donald Trump’s debate-night claim that the two ultra-wealthy moguls took similar approaches towards tax payments.
“He has not seen my income tax returns. But I am happy to give him the facts,” Buffett said in a statement to CNBC, after Trump accused the Berkshire Hathaway chairman of taking a “massive deduction” from the stage of the second presidential debate in St. Louis.
“I have paid federal income tax every year since 1944, when I was 13. (Though, being a slow starter, I owed only $7 in tax that year.) I have copies of all 72 of my returns and none uses a carryforward,” Buffet said.
Trump admitted for the first time from the debate stage that he “of course” used a $916 million loss that he claimed on a 1995 tax record published by The New York Times to avoid paying federal income taxes for a number of years.
Buffett said that of the $11.56 million he earned in 2015, he had total deductions of $5.48 million, including $3.47 million for allowable charitable contributions. He said he paid $1.85 million in federal income taxes last year.
The billionaire investor’s statement also goes after Trump for insisting throughout the 2016 campaign that he cannot make his tax records public because he is under audit from the IRS.
“I have been audited by the IRS multiple times and am currently being audited,” Buffett told CNBC. “I have no problem in releasing my tax information while under audit. Neither would Mr. Trump—at least he would have no legal problem.”
Read Buffett’s full statement below:
Warren Buffett fires back at Trump over taxes, in statement to CNBC pic.twitter.com/K0tWMr7Mj2
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) October 10, 2016
