Early last week, the New York Times obtained Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s tax records from 1995, in which he declared a $916 million loss. According to tax experts, a loss as substantial as this would have enabled Trump to exempt paying federal income taxes for up to 18 years, spanning from 1996 all the way through 2013.

The amount of taxes that Donald Trump may or may not have paid over the past couple of decades has been a large topic of discussion in regard to the presidential race which pits Trump against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate. Clinton has made allegations against Trump, that he hasn’t paid any federal income taxes at all, to weaken his chances of defeating her in the election next month. With the new release in the New York Times, these allegations appear true.

The loss that Trump declared is the result of a flurry of his economic failures in the early 1990’s, most notably his mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos and an ill-timed purchase of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. However, it appears that Trump has benefitted greatly from these events, as is evident in his tax report.

While Trump has avoided paying taxes, he is not guilty of tax evasion, as everything he has exempted is perfectly legal as a result of what he calls, “broken” tax codes. These tax codes have proved to be incredibly advantageous to the wealthy. Donald Trump has defended himself by arguing that because he was able to escape paying taxes for so long because he knows and understands the tax codes more than anybody else, and if elected he will use this knowledge to fix them. It is also worth noting that Trump has paid an abundant amount of taxes in other forms, such as state and local taxes.

“You don’t need to pay taxes to know how to run a country”, West Morris Senior Connor Noto answered when asked about this situation.

Whether or not the voting population shares the same sentiment as Noto is yet to be seen, as this could have been what political experts call, the “October surprise”. The October surprise is some form of unexpected news regarding a political candidate, whether it be presidential, governmental, or local, that can have a dramatic effect on the ways voters vote come Election Day in November. The release of Trump’s tax reforms could very well be our October surprise, or perhaps we are yet to have the October surprise.