Donald Trump Tax Returns Reportedly Show $916 Million Loss in 1995

Donald Trump's income tax returns from 1995 reportedly show he declared a $916 million loss, according to the New York Times, which said it received three pages from Trump's filings that year.

The Times posted three pages it said were from Trump's New York, New Jersey and Connecticut state income tax filings from 1995, all of which declared a loss of $915,729,293. The documents came to the newspaper by mail, with a New York City postmark, the Times reported.

The paper said the legitimacy of the documents was confirmed by Jack Mitnick, a lawyer and certified public accountant who handled Trump's tax affairs until 1996 and who was listed as the preparer on the New Jersey tax form.

Hillary Clinton has used Trump's failure to release his tax returns as part of her attack on him, most recently at the debate Monday evening. When Clinton alluded to Trump possibly not having paid any taxes, Trump said that made him "smart."

Trump's campaign responded to the Times story by saying in a statement that did not confirm or deny the validity of the documents the Times posted, saying "The only news here is that the more than 20-year-old alleged tax document was illegally obtained."

"Mr. Trump is a highly-skilled businessman who has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required," the statement said. "That being said, Mr. Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes."

And on Sunday morning, Trump tweeted, "I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them. #failing @nytimes"

Hillary Clinton's campaign also released a statement reacting to the Times report.

"There it is," said campaign manager Robby Mook. "This bombshell report reveals the colossal nature of Donald Trump's past business failures and just how long he may have avoided paying any federal income taxes whatsoever. In one year, Donald Trump lost nearly a billion dollars. A billion. He stiffed small businesses, laid off workers, and walked away from hardworking communities. And how did it work out for him? He apparently got to avoid paying taxes for nearly two decades -- while tens of millions of working families paid theirs. He calls that 'smart.'"

Concludes Mook, "Now that the gig is up, why doesn't he go ahead and release his returns to show us all how 'smart' he really is?"