With Election Day just around the corner, both Donald Trump and Joe Biden are leaving no stone unturned in a bid to have an edge over their rival. They are cashing in on the latest events and pieces of recently surfaced information that accentuate their rival's mistakes or weaknesses.
Keeping in line with this strategy, former vice president Joe Biden’s campaign quickly capitalized a viral report from the New York Times on the president's taxes. Trump labeled the report as "fake news," which allegedly reveals how he avoided paying federal income taxes in 10 of the past 15 years.
Shortly after the report surfaced online on Sunday, Biden's campaign started selling merchandise including T-shirts, buttons, and stickers that say, “I paid more income taxes than Donald Trump.” Robyn Kenner, who is the Senior Creative Advisor to Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris, share a photo of the button on Twitter and received noteworthy support from the Twitterverse with over 2,300 retweets, and about 7,500 likes at the time of writing.
Biden's campaign also posted a video on the social media platform, comparing how much taxes Americans including nurses, firefighters, and teachers ideally pay to the president. ”Teachers paid $7,239. Firefighters paid $5,283. Nurses paid $10,216. Donald Trump paid $750,” the Biden campaign tweeted.
As of Sept. 28, the video had garnered over a whopping 3.4 million views on Twitter. Biden's campaign on Monday also came up with a tax calculator that calculates how much more an individual paid in taxes as compared to Trump.
The president held a press conference less than an hour after the report surfaced, and blasted the report claiming, “It's fake news, it’s totally made up.” The report claims Trump, who has guarded his tax filings and is the only modern-day president to not making them public, shelled out $750 in taxes to the federal government in 2016, the year he was elected and paid $750 again during his first year in the office.
The Times suggests the report comprises tax return data extending over two decades. This comes at a crucial moment just before the first presidential debate Tuesday and during a volatile and divisive election.
Trump, whose net worth is reportedly in the billions, denied the allegations claiming he paid a lot and has paid a lot of state income taxes too. Trump Organization lawyer Alan Garten also denied the New York Times report, releasing a statement that Trump has paid tens of millions of dollars in personal taxes to the federal government, since announcing his candidacy in 2015.