Donald Trump talked about America’s complex tax code during his campaign rally in Pueblo, Colorado on Monday, following a recent New York Times report that the real estate mogul benefited substantially from tax laws and suggested that he may not have paid taxes for more than a decade.
“The unfairness of the tax laws is unbelievable,” Trump stated while speaking to thousands at the Pueblo Convention Center. “It’s something I’ve been talking about for a long time,” he added, despite being a beneficiary of the laws.
“I understand the tax laws better than almost anyone, which is why I am the one who can fix them – and that is what I commit to doing,” he vowed. “As a businessman and real estate developer, I have legally used the tax laws to my benefit, and to the benefit of my company and my employees. I have often said on the campaign trail, that I have a fiduciary responsibility to pay no more tax than legally required – or, put another way, to pay as little tax as legally possible.”
He continued:
As a major real estate developer in this country, and throughout the world, I face enormous taxes: city taxes, state taxes, sales and excise taxes, employee taxes, and federal taxes. It’s my job to minimize the overall tax burden to the greatest extent possible – which allows me to reinvest in neighborhoods, workers, and build amazing properties which fuel tremendous growth in their communities – and always help our great providers of jobs, the small business.
“I was able to use the tax laws of this country, and my business acumen, to dig out of this real estate depression when few others did. In those most difficult times, when so many had their backs to the wall, I reached within myself and delivered for my company, my employees, my family and the communities where my properties existed,” Trump added.
The Republican nominee went on to attack his rival Hillary Clinton, saying she “hasn’t made an honest dollar in her entire life.”
“Hillary Clinton made her money as a corrupt public official breaking the law and putting her government office up for sale,” Trump jabbed. “They spend our tax dollars so unfairly and unwisely,” he added about the current administration.
Trump is holding a second rally in Loveland, Colorado Monday night.