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White House releases Donald Trump's 2005 tax returns ahead of MSNBC broadcast

Washington: Rachel Maddow, a host on American TV channel MSNBC, set the internet alight on Tuesday when she said on Twitter she had obtained Donald Trump's 2005 tax returns and would be broadcasting details.

Within minutes of the telecast, the White House responded by saying the President had paid $US38 million in taxes on more than $US150 million in income.

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Trump's 2005 tax return revealed

MSNBC has received President Donald Trump's two page 2005 tax return.

Trump has refused to release his tax returns, saying he couldn't because his taxes were under audit by the Internal Revenue Service.

Presidents and major candidates for the White House have routinely released their income tax returns. Experts say an IRS audit does not bar someone from releasing the documents.

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Maddow flagged she would reveal Trump's returns on her show at 9pm local time (noon AEDT), prompting the White House to issue the statement. In the telecast, she said the station had two pages of the 2005 returns obtained through anonymous sources.

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The White House did not release any documents supporting its numbers. It said Trump, as head of the Trump Organisation, had a responsibility "to pay no more tax than legally required".

The White House said publishing those returns would be illegal. According to The Washington Post it issued the statement to reporters anonymously to be attributed to a White House spokesperson. It was posted on Twitter by CNN's Jim Acosta.

"You know you are desperate for ratings when you are willing to violate the law to push a story about two pages of tax returns from over a decade ago," the statement read.

According to the papers obtained by investigative journalist David Cay Johnston and shown on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, Trump paid an effective tax rate of about 25 per cent and reported a $US105 million tax writedown.

In a panel interview after the telecast, Johnston confirmed he'd received the documents "over my threshold at my home".

"There is nothing illegal about publishing stuff. Journalists can receive any information ... It is not illegal to publish it," he said.

Maddow said the document was put to the White House and verified as true.

"Calling the [media] dishonest in this statement - there is nothing dishonest about this document, there's nothing dishonest about his publication. We put the document to the White House; they never said it wasn't true. They essentially verified the document then insulted us for doing so."

The two-page summary document shows that Trump and his wife, Melania, paid roughly $US5.3 million in federal income tax along with more than $US31 million in alternative minimum tax. Trump has proposed abolishing that tax in the official tax reform blueprint he released during the campaign. He also paid self employment taxes that brought his effective tax rate down.

Trump also reported "negative income" of roughly $US103 million that year, Johnston said. The White House statement said Trump had taken "large scale depreciation for construction".

By comparison, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney disclosed an effective tax rate of 13.9 per cent on a 2010 tax return that he released during his 2012 presidential campaign.

Federal law makes it a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $US5000 fine to publish US tax return information.

Maddow said the First Amendment's guarantee of a free press "gives us a right to publish this return".

Johnston said "there is absolutely nothing improper" about journalists publishing the documents if they haven't solicited them.

At times Trump paid no federal income taxes, according to news reports. That includes at least two years in the late 1970s, The Washington Post reported last year, citing a 1981 New Jersey gambling commission report.

The New York Times reported in October that Trump declared a substantial loss in 1995 that could have allowed him to avoid paying federal income taxes for up to 18 years afterwards, based on records obtained by the newspaper.

During a September presidential debate, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton criticised Trump for paying no federal income taxes.

"That makes me smart," he responded.

Reuters, Bloomberg, Fairfax Media

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