An old post from President Donald Trump complaining about taxes paid by then-President Barack Obama is looking especially awkward in light of the explosive New York Times report about his own taxes.
Obama in 2011 paid $162,074 in federal taxes on gross income of $789,674, according to the return he released that year.
Trump has not released his own taxes, but the New York Times reported on Sunday that he paid no federal income taxes that year.
Yet on Twitter, Trump at the time complained that Obama’s rate was 20.5%, according to an old tweet that’s resurfaced in light of the new revelations:
The Los Angeles Times reported at the time that Obama’s tax rate was slightly lower than average for people in his tier due to $172,130 in charitable donations that year.
Trump’s write-offs include $70,000 in hairstyling costs for “The Apprentice,” while much of his charitable giving was in the form of conservation easements, or agreements not to develop certain properties, including land around an estate the Trumps use as a family retreat.
Trump, the Times reported, paid just $750 per year in federal income tax in 2016 and 2017 and nothing in 10 of the previous 15 years due to massive financial losses.
The newspaper noted at one point that 2014 marked four years in a row where Trump paid nothing in taxes ― meaning he paid zero in 2011, the same year Obama paid $162,074 in federal taxes, and also zero in 2012, when he fired off that tweet.