Pickens made the disclosure about his tax bill to CNN’s Carol Costello in a joint interview with billionaires Ken Langone and Leon Cooperman. The conversation touched on the three men’s wealth, their charitable work, and the current presidential election. Pickens, who fell off the Forbes billionaires list in 2014, said he isn’t paying taxes because he’s working off of large losses he posted in the past. But he stressed that he did pay millions in federal income tax in the years before those losses.
Pickens, who is 88, said that since he turned 70, “I have paid $675 million dollars in taxes.”
The three said that it’s not a surprise if Donald Trump took a $916 million loss in 1995 and didn’t pay taxes for 18 years, as has been reported. They said such a filing would be standard operating procedure for many businesses.
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