Trump, his firms paid more taxes in Philippines than in US in 2017 —New York Times report

US President Donald Trump or his companies paid more taxes in the Philippines than in the United States in 2017, according to a New York Times report.

Trump or his companies reported paying $156,824 in the Philippines in 2017, more than the $750 in federal income tax he paid the US government that year, the Times said in a September 27 report that said Trump has minimized his tax bill by reporting massive losses across his business empire.

Trump licensed his name to the Trump Tower at Century City, a luxury condominium development in Makati City.

According to the Times report, Trump reported in his financial disclosures that he had earned, at the "low end of the range," $4.1 million from the tower — "less than half of the $9.3 million he actually made."

"It did not take long for conflicts to emerge when Mr. Trump ran for president and won," The Times reported. "The Philippines' strongman leader, Rodrigo Duterte, chose as a special trade envoy to Washington the businessman behind the Trump tower in Manila."

This businessman is Jose Antonio, the executive chairman of the board of Century Properties Group, Inc. He was first appointed as special envoy to the US for trade, investment and economic affairs in 2016, and again in 2018.

The Times reported that in Trump's first two years as president, he earned $73 million from his overseas business ventures — much of it from his golf courses in Scotland and Ireland, but also $3 million from the Philippines, $2.3 million from India, and $1 million from Turkey, countries that the newspaper described as places "with authoritarian-leaning leaders or thorny geopolitics."

The taxes Trump or his companies paid in Panama ($15,598) and India ($145,400) in 2017 also "dwarfed" what he paid the US government that same year, the Times reported.

The Times obtained decades of Trump's personal and corporate tax records and found that, for one, he paid just $750 in federal income taxes in both 2016 and 2017, and none for 10 of the prior 15 years despite earning $427.4 million until 2018 from his reality television program and other endorsement and licensing deals.

"The tax returns that Mr. Trump has long fought to keep private tell a story fundamentally different from the one he has sold to the American public," the Times said.

"His reports to the I.R.S. portray a businessman who takes in hundreds of millions of dollars a year yet racks up chronic losses that he aggressively employs to avoid paying taxes," it added.

The Republican US president called the report "total fake news" and cited an ongoing audit for not releasing his tax returns.

Trump is campaigning for re-election against Democrat Joe Biden for the Nov. 3 US elections. —KBK, GMA News