Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says he "brilliantly used" US tax rules to his advantage in trying to limit the amount he paid in taxes, arguing it helped him survive a difficult period in the real estate market.

Trump said to a crowd in Pueblo, Colorado, that, "I was able to use the tax laws of this country and my business acumen to dig out of the real estate mess when few others were able to do what I did."

“As a businessman and real estate developer, I have legally used the tax laws to my benefit. And to the benefit of my company, my investors and my employees,” he said.

“I mean, honestly, I have brilliantly I have brilliantly used the laws and often said on the campaign trail that I have a fiduciary responsibility to pay no more tax than is legally required like anybody else. Or, put another way, to pay as little tax as legally possible. And I must tell you, I hate the way they spend our tax dollars.”

“It’s my job to minimize the overall tax burden to greatest extent possible which allows me to reinvest in neighborhoods, in workers and build amazing properties which fuel tremendous growth in their communities and always help our great providers of jobs and we have to help our small businesses,” he said.

“It’s what it’s all about. It’s what it’s all about. The news media is now obsessed with an alleged tax filing from the 1990s at the end of one of the most brutal economic downturns in our country’s history.”

“The conditions facing real estate developers in that early ‘90s period were almost as bad as the Great Depression of 1929 and far worse than the Great Recession of 2008,” he continued.

“Companies, jobs and opportunities were lost and lives were destroyed as tens of thousands of people were put out of work. Some of the biggest and strongest of companies went absolutely bankrupt. Which I never did, by the way,” he added.

“I was able to use the tax laws in this country and my business acumen to dig out of the real estate mess....In those most difficult times when so many had their backs to the wall, I reached within myself and delivered for my company, my employees, my family and the communities where my properties existed. And I really delivered,” he said.

Mrs. Clinton said in a rally in Toledo, Ohio, that, "What kind of genius loses a billion dollars in a single year? This is Trump to a T, he's taken corporate excess and made a business out of it."

Trump was dismissive of the Times' story in his Pueblo remarks, saying the media was "obsessed with an alleged tax filing from the 1990s."

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Nandini