Donald Trump acknowledges 1980s tax write offs, calls it ‘sport’

Donald Trump has acknowledged taking large tax write offs for property business losses in the 1980s and 1990s, describing the practice as "sport" among developers like himself at the time.

Mr Trump’s comments came after the New York Times acquired copies of his tax documents from the period.

The newspaper reported that his businesses incurred $1.17 billion (£899.5 million) in losses between 1985 and 1994.

Because of those losses Mr Trump did not pay income taxes for eight of the 10 years, according to the documents.

Writing on Twitter, Mr Trump did not directly acknowledge the scale of the losses.

He said: "The very old information put out is a highly inaccurate Fake News hit job!"

But he added: "Real estate developers in the 1980s and 1990s, more than 30 years ago, were entitled to massive write offs and depreciation which would, if one was actively building, show losses and tax losses in almost all cases.

"You always wanted to show losses for tax purposes…almost all real estate developers did – and often re-negotiate with banks, it was sport."

The New York Times also compared Mr Trump’s information with that of other "high-income earners".

It concluded that he "appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer."

Mr Trump is the first president since Watergate to decline to make his tax returns public. 

Steven Mnuchin, the treasury secretary, has denied requests from Democrats in Congress for Mr Trump’s more recent tax returns.

Mr Mnuchin’s refusal, after a month of deliberation, looked set to spark another legal clash between the president and Democrats in Congress.