The NY Times is out with serious look at how Donald J. Trump got rich from his father’s money and how things were do to evade paying hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars in NewYork State and Federal taxes….
New York State tax people are investigating the Trump organization ….
The Internal Revue Service has in the past chosen to work deals with Trump for back taxes and things disallowed on his tax forms …
There where stories about his tax trouble’s back a couple of years ago…
But those stories have faded from the headlines…
These maneuvers met with little resistance from the Internal Revenue Service, The Times found. The president’s parents, Fred and Mary Trump, transferred well over $1 billion in wealth to their children, which could have produced a tax bill of at least $550 million under the 55 percent tax rate then imposed on gifts and inheritances.
The Trumps paid a total of $52.2 million, or about 5 percent, tax records show.
The president declined repeated requests over several weeks to comment for this article. But a lawyer for Mr. Trump, Charles J. Harder, provided a written statement on Monday, one day after The Times sent a detailed description of its findings. “The New York Times’s allegations of fraud and tax evasion are 100 percent false, and highly defamatory,” Mr. Harder said. “There was no fraud or tax evasion by anyone. The facts upon which The Times bases its false allegations are extremely inaccurate.”
Mr. Harder sought to distance Mr. Trump from the tax strategies used by his family, saying the president had delegated those tasks to relatives and tax professionals. “President Trump had virtually no involvement whatsoever with these matters,” he said. “The affairs were handled by other Trump family members who were not experts themselves and therefore relied entirely upon the aforementioned licensed professionals to ensure full compliance with the law.”
[Read the full statement]
The president’s brother, Robert Trump, issued a statement on behalf of the Trump family….
…
What emerges from this body of evidence is a financial biography of the 45th president fundamentally at odds with the story Mr. Trump has sold in his books, his TV shows and his political life. In Mr. Trump’s version of how he got rich, he was the master dealmaker who broke free of his father’s “tiny” outer-borough operation and parlayed a single $1 million loan from his father (“I had to pay him back with interest!”) into a $10 billion empire that would slap the Trump name on hotels, high-rises, casinos, airlines and golf courses the world over. In Mr. Trump’s version, it was always his guts and gumption that overcame setbacks. Fred Trump was simply a cheerleader.
“I built what I built myself,” Mr. Trump has said, a narrative that was long amplified by often-credulous coverage from news organizations, including The Times….
…
The line between legal tax avoidance and illegal tax evasion is often murky, and it is constantly being stretched by inventive tax lawyers. There is no shortage of clever tax avoidance tricks that have been blessed by either the courts or the I.R.S. itself. The richest Americans almost never pay anything close to full freight. But tax experts briefed on The Times’s findings said the Trumps appeared to have done more than exploit legal loopholes. They said the conduct described here represented a pattern of deception and obfuscation, particularly about the value of Fred Trump’s real estate, that repeatedly prevented the I.R.S. from taxing large transfers of wealth to his children….
There IS a LOT More....
image…townandcountry.com
The White House issued a statement Tuesday blasting the Times for publishing what it called a “misleading attack” on the Trump family while also stopping short of denying the story’s claims.
The statement was issued under White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ name, but contained a litany of Trump-style attacks on the Times and other media outlets. It asserted that the media’s “credibility with the American people is at an all time low because they are consumed with attacking the president and his family 24/7 instead of reporting the news.”
Charles Harder, an attorney for Trump, said in a statement to the Times that allegations of tax evasion are “100 percent false.” He said Trump “had virtually no involvement” with the tax strategies used by his family, which he said were carried out by professional tax advisers.
The allegations could pose legal problems for Trump, who is already grappling with the Russia investigation and a federal probe of his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.
The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance said Tuesday it is reviewing the claims in the Times story and “vigorously pursuing all appropriate avenues of investigation.”….
More…
Just ANOTHER example of the Trump bending reality….
8 Times Donald Trump Claimed He Was A Self-Made Man
Donald Trump has, for decades, attempted to portray himself as a self-made, up-by-your-bootstraps entrepreneur who benefited little from his father’s fortune, relying on his own gumption and wiles to overcome financial challenges….
More…
Does anyone here think Republicans give a damn about any of this?
Republicans will stand UP and cheer!
My hope is that my State is able to get hundreds of millions of dollars out of the guy and his organization that might even lower MY taxes…..
Trump and GOPer’s control the IRS….
He’s home free from them….
Could u image if NY State FROZE his accounts?
“ that might even lower my taxes.”
Hahaha!
Yeah that’s gonna happen!
Ah…You don’t think so Jack?
He, he, he…..
Yeah Republicans don’t give a shit how Trump got his money. Hard work and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps? That’s for poor minorities.
It’s actually for all Americans.
If Trump were completely self-made, it wouldn’t make him any better of a person though.
Deepest condolences, CG, on the Cubs’ exit from the post-season (at the hands, no less, of an expansion team).
One can only hope that the Oakland A’s honour their duty to baseball and to the memory of Connie Mack by beating the Yankees tonight.
Thank you. As disappointing as it may be, I reminded myself that I promised in 2016 that if the Cubs won the World Series, I could never really complain about sports again. So, wait til next year!
I guess I hope the Indians finally get to experience a WS victory. Anyone but Milwaukee.
Have some sympathy, CG — although Chief Wa-Hoo’s suffered through a long drought, the Indians have at least won some World Series (5) while the Brewers (or Seattle Pilots) have never done so.
1948 Indians is the longest MLB drought.
They were kind enough to cooperate two years ago.
Well, it doesn’t look too hopeful for the Athletics right now, behind 7-0 in the Bronx.
As a current resident of Red Sox Nation and a former East Bay resident* who used to sell A’s and Giants tickets over the phone for BASS/TicketMaster, this is not good news.
Since I think that James roots for the Amazin’ Mets, we at least share an antipathy for the Evil Empire, who (unless a just Providence intervenes) will be playing the Red Sox on Friday.
* [The A’s, in fact, are one of the only three MLB teams I’ve seen play live, once against Seattle and twice, in pre-season exhibition, against the Giants, in the soon to be depopulated Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum.]