The New York Times article is based on printouts from Trump's official tax transcripts — not actual tax returns — which were provided to the outlet by an anonymous source with legal access to the information. According to the transcripts, Trump lost $46.1 million from his core businesses, namely his casinos, hotels and apartment building retail spaces, in 1985. The losses continued to accrue, reaching $1.17 billion by 1994.
"He's partly telling the truth," Rall told Sputnik.
"It's definitely true that the whole tax code was written for real estate developers — and they want to show losses so they don't pay taxes. The tax code treats people like Donald Trump as though [they are a] rusty old car. While his building is appreciating in actual value, the stuff that's inside the building, the building materials and so on, is rotting and rusting away into dust. So, you could [continue to] buy, as Donald Trump did. And that is how a man who can be very poor on paper can nevertheless borrow tons of money and live a lavish lifestyle and afford two divorces," Rall explained.
"There's not really many rich people who have lots of cash. They borrow a ton of money, and basically the game is, you invest in a lot of stuff with other people's money, and then if it works out, great, you pocket the winnings. [But] if it crashes and burns, you declare bankruptcy, and you walk away clear," Rall noted.
Charles Harder, an attorney for Trump, has refuted the New York Times article, stating that is it based on "inherently unreliable" tax transcripts.
"IRS transcripts, particularly before the days of electronic filing, are notoriously inaccurate, incomplete and selective in any information that may have been manually inputted into (or omitted from) the IRS system," Harder said in a recent statement.
According to Rall, Trump may be reluctant to release his tax returns, which Democrats have demanded, because they have the potential to ruin his public persona.
"If he's not rich, who is he? Why did we elect him? The point of electing Donald Trump was that he would run the country the way he ran his successful business," Rall noted.