President Trump's tax records show that China is one of three foreign countries where he maintains a bank account.
According to the Times, the account is controlled by Trump International Hotels Management LLC, which paid $188,561 in taxes in China from 2013 to 2015.
In addition to Chinese accounts, Trump has bank accounts in the United Kingdom and Ireland. According to the Times, the president's foreign bank accounts are kept’ in corporate names and as a result do not appear on the president's public financial disclosure forms.
Time documents obtained by tax documents do not indicate how much could be spent on Trump's foreign accounts, and the Times says it is not clear which financial institutions have the accounts. According to the Times, the IRS requires taxpayers to report a portion of their income from overseas, and Trump's hotel management agency reported several thousand dollars from China alone.
Alan Garten, a lawyer for the Trump organization, said the company opened an account with a Chinese bank that pays taxes on attempts to do business in China. He said the account was opened’ after the Trump organization opened an office in China in an attempt to explore possible hotel deals in Asia.
"No deals, transactions or other business activities have ever taken place and since 2015, this office has been inactive," Garten told the Times. "Although the bank account remains open, it has never been used for any other purpose."
The Times story comes at a time when China has been the talk of the town during the 2020 presidential race. Trump has been arguing that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is too lenient with China.
The president and his allies have raised questions about the candidate's son, Hunter Biden, doing business in China. Hunter Biden has denied wrongdoing and said he did not use his father's position for personal gain.
According to the Times, the Democratic nominee Joe Biden's financial disclosures and tax returns show no business or income in China.
The Times article is one of several stories the newspaper has written in recent weeks based on the president's tax records. An earlier story reported that Trump paid only $750 in federal income tax for each of 2016 and 2017.
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