Tax experts say the lack of transparency makes Trump’s actual bill nearly impossible to calculate.
President Trump’s latest financial disclosure confirmed he earned $1.4 billion from crypto ventures pursued since returning to office, but the filing raised almost as many questions as it answered. Chief among them is how much of that income will actually be taxed, a question tax experts say is difficult to answer given how little detail the disclosure provides.
Why the tax bill is so hard to pin down
One accountant specializing in cryptocurrency income told CBS News it’s reasonable to expect Trump would owe at least $250 million on the crypto earnings. Other tax experts caution that his actual bill could end up far lower, largely because of how opaque the corporate structures holding the income remain. Unlike several of his predecessors, Trump doesn’t release his tax returns publicly, which removes one of the few tools reporters and researchers would normally use to estimate a president’s tax liability.
Law professor Omri Marian, who specializes in cryptocurrency taxation, compared the situation to looking into a black box. Without knowing how the beneficial ownership of the crypto income is structured, he said, it’s essentially impossible to determine the real tax exposure. The White House declined to answer questions about whether the crypto income was taxed individually or through a business entity, or whether any operating losses were applied against it.
The numbers behind the disclosure
If the entire $1.4 billion were taxed at the top individual federal rate of 37%, Trump would owe roughly $518 million, though that figure doesn’t account for potential deductions or loss offsets. The IRS generally treats digital assets the same as traditional securities for capital gains purposes, but Marian noted that the disclosure’s vague description of income sources makes it unclear whether the crypto earnings would even qualify as capital gains rather than ordinary income.
Some of the specific figures are known. Trump collected $625 million from his branded meme coin, described in the disclosure as a royalty tied to a licensing agreement with a separate company. Separately, World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture he co-founded with his sons, paid him more than $590 million tied to token sales and the sale of an equity stake in the business.
Trump’s own explanation
In a CNBC interview, Trump downplayed the scrutiny around his crypto earnings, saying his son Eric manages his investments and that he doesn’t track who ultimately handles the money. He described himself as a longtime successful businessman while distancing himself from direct knowledge of the specific crypto holdings driving last year’s windfall.
Trump also dismissed the idea that the situation presents a conflict of interest, arguing that a president can’t reasonably recuse himself from every decision that might intersect with his personal finances. He framed his broader approach to crypto as a matter of national competitiveness, suggesting the U.S. needs to maintain a leading position in the industry.
A legal wall around his tax history
Getting more clarity on Trump’s crypto tax situation may not be possible through traditional channels. Under a settlement the Justice Department signed with Trump in May, the IRS and Treasury Department are permanently barred from pursuing claims tied to his prior tax returns. That agreement resolved a lawsuit Trump filed after a government contractor leaked his returns to news outlets in 2020.
The same settlement originally included a fund exceeding $1.7 billion meant to compensate people who claimed to be victims of government overreach, a provision that drew bipartisan criticism before a federal judge paused its creation. The acting attorney general later told Congress the department wouldn’t move forward with the fund as originally structured.
What remains unresolved
Between the limited disclosure details, the lack of public tax returns and the legal barriers now in place around his tax history, the true size of Trump’s crypto related tax bill may never be confirmed with certainty. For now, the estimates from outside experts, ranging from roughly a quarter billion to more than half a billion dollars, represent the closest approximation available without direct access to the underlying financial structures involved.