The NY Times spotlights some it’s own probe into the Trump organisation now….
And Donald Trump’s fathers business legal tax issue’s…..
Several of Trump’s family members ARE tied to his business and other people who work for him…
The current charges do NOT involve a lot of what the NY Times has discovered that might be illegal tax wise with hidden money transactions ….
Like his father?
Donald Trump has gone the extra miles to NOT pay taxes like you and me….
Will there be another shoe to drop going ahead ?
The Trump Organization, for all the puffery of its leader, has always been essentially a family business, tightly controlled by Mr. Trump and a small number of relatives and trusted associates, including Mr. Weisselberg. Although the company has about 3,500 employees worldwide, most are lower-tier workers at golf resorts and hotels and only 122 made $100,000 or more in 2018, according to tax records for Mr. Trump and his businesses obtained by The New York Times.
The tax records, which The Times reported on last year, also reveal a deep commitment to green-eyeshades maneuvering to winnow taxes to a minimum. Hundreds of millions of dollars in deductions for business expenses ran the gamut, from $6 for food in Uruguay and $10 for using a telephone in Panama to $13.7 million for “sales and marketing” in Las Vegas.
Of course, efficient accountants would not be doing their job if they did not try to maximize tax breaks. But in the indictment unsealed on Thursday, the Trump Organization is accused of being too clever by half, to the point of criminality, in playing the game.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office and New York State’s attorney general are also investigating whether the company intentionally overvalued a 50,000-square-foot mansion in Westchester County to claim a $21 million tax write-off for a conservation easement. Both agencies are also examining the Trump Organization’s practice of deducting millions of dollars in consulting fees, some of which appear to have been paid to at least one of Mr. Trump’s children who was a full-time company employee at the time she received them.
No charges have been filed related to those inquiries, and Mr. Trump himself has not been charged. Both Mr. Weisselberg and the Trump Organization denied the charges in the indictment, and Mr. Trump has called the investigations, which were initiated by elected Democrats, a politically motivated “witch hunt.”
The Trump Organization’s relentless quest for tax avoidance has its roots in Fred Trump’s determination to fend off the taxman at every possible turn. A self-made workaholic who built and sold his first house before he was 20, the elder Mr. Trump eventually passed more than $1 billion to his children while employing legally dubious strategies to avoid nearly $500 million in taxes on the transfers, a 2018 investigation by The Times found.
“My father had always been very much opposed to paying taxes, so to the extent he could pay less in taxes, that was a good thing,” Robert Trump, the former president’s younger brother, said in a legal deposition related to Fred Trump’s estate. (Robert Trump died last year at 71.)
Among the Trump family’s machinations was the creation in 1992 of All County Building Supply & Maintenance, a company that existed mainly on paper. It was co-owned by Donald Trump, his three siblings and a cousin, John Walter.
Vendors who sold goods and services to Trump properties were asked to send invoices to All County, which would pad the actual cost by an additional 20 percent or more and bill Fred Trump, who paid the inflated amount. The extra money was then split among the former president, his siblings and Mr. Walter.
Asked in a deposition why the elder Mr. Trump went to such lengths, which tax experts interviewed by The Times said were improper, if not illegal, Mr. Walter suggested it was to avoid the so-called death tax that would incur if the money were simply left to the Trump children in their father’s will.
“He loved to save taxes,” Mr. Walter said.
It is a lesson fully absorbed by his eager-to-please son Donald, who has bragged about avoiding taxes. When his Democratic opponent in 2016, Hillary Clinton, accused him during a debate of not paying federal income taxes, Mr. Trump replied: “That makes me smart.”
The Times’s 2020 investigation of Mr. Trump’s tax records found that by using hundreds of millions in losses from his businesses, as well as by deducting expenses and taking advantage of tax credits, he was able to pay only $750 in federal income taxes in both 2016 and 2017, and none at all in 10 of the previous 15 years….
Note…
If you want to know more about Donald Trump’s father , Fred, who once was arrested in Queens during a Ku Klux Klan rally….
Check here....