President Trump‘s tax records show that China is one of three foreign countries where he maintains a bank account, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
The account is controlled by Trump International Hotels Management LLC, which paid $188,561 in taxes in China from 2013 to 2015, according to the Times.
In addition to the Chinese account, Trump also has bank accounts in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The president’s foreign bank accounts are held under corporate names and as a result don’t appear on the president’s public financial disclosure forms, the Times reported.
The tax documents that the Times has obtained don’t indicate how much money may have flowed through Trump’s foreign accounts, and the Times said it’s unclear which financial institutions hold the accounts. The IRS requires taxpayers to report the portion of their income from foreign countries, and the Trump hotel management entity only reported several thousand dollars from China, the Times said.
Alan Garten, a lawyer for the Trump organization, said the company opened an account at a Chinese bank that has offices in the U.S. in order to pay taxes associated with efforts to do business in China. He said the account was opened after the Trump Organization opened an office in China in an effort to explore possible hotel deals in Asia.
“No deals, transactions or other business activities ever materialized and, since 2015, the office has remained inactive,” Garten told the Times. “Though the bank account remains open, it has never been used for any other purpose.”
The Times story comes as China has been a topic of discussion during the 2020 presidential race. Trump has been arguing that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is too soft of China.
The president and his allies have raised questions about the business dealings in China of Hunter Biden, the candidate’s son. Hunter Biden has denied wrongdoing and has said that he has not used his father’s position for personal gain.
Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s financial disclosures and tax returns don’t show any business or income in China, the Times reported.
The Times article is one of several stories the newspaper has written in recent weeks based on tax records of the president that it has obtained. An earlier story reported that Trump only paid $750 in federal income taxes for each of 2016 and 2017.
