CNN reports that Trump paid no income taxes at all for 10 of 15 years since 2000. The CNN report is based on a story published by the New York Times (behind a pay wall). The Times apparently received Trump’s tax returns from an insider.

Trump denied the story and said he would release his tax returns when the IRS finishes auditing them. He has said this for four years. Being under audit is no barrier to releasing your tax returns. Trump’s taxes from 2000-2008 are no longer under audit, but he won’t release them.

If every American followed Trump’s example and dodged paying their taxes, the federal government would be unable to function.

The Times’ report did not include his returns for 2018 and 2019.

The story by Russ Buettner, Susanne Craig and Mike McIntire begins:

The Times obtained Donald Trump’s tax information extending over more than two decades, revealing struggling properties, vast write-offs, an audit battle and hundreds of millions in debt coming due.

Donald J. Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750.

He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.

As the president wages a re-election campaign that polls say he is in danger of losing, his finances are under stress, beset by losses and hundreds of millions of dollars in debt coming due that he has personally guaranteed. Also hanging over him is a decade-long audit battle with the Internal Revenue Service over the legitimacy of a $72.9 million tax refund that he claimed, and received, after declaring huge losses. An adverse ruling could cost him more than $100 million.