Leaked Trump tax returns show millions paid via tax law he wants to abandon

US President Donald Trump was forced to pay over $30m in 2005 in federal taxes based on legislation brought in to ensure the mega-rich paid more to the state, a leaked tax return shows.

A section of the real estate mogul's taxes for 2005 was released late on Tuesday by MSNBC, showing that Trump paid a total of $38m to the state during that year, with $31m going towards the "Alternative Minimum Tax", a regulation Trump has promised to remove.

The leaked report shows that Trump's income for 2005 amounted to $150m, obliging him to pay a general income tax of $5.3m, combined with the further AMT tax.

The White House angrily condemned the MSNBC leak, describing the network as "desperate".

"You know you are desperate for ratings when you are willing to violate the law to push a story about two pages of tax returns from over a decade ago," a Trump administration official said in a statement.

"Before being elected president, Mr Trump was one of the most successful businessmen in the world with a responsibility to his company, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required."

Trump went against decades of precedent during his election campaign by not releasing his tax returns in full, and has faced scrutiny from several sides over his failure to do so. He said that because his taxes were under audit by the IRS there was no need to release them, and has since claimed that the public does not care about his taxes.

Some have claimed that the White House itself was behind the leaked documents, in an attempt to deflect attention from ongoing issues of wiretap claims and efforts to replace Obamacare.