Just speculation on my part, but could it be that for complex land holdings, the owner had to provide info to the tax assessors, so the assessors are forced to rely on the taxpayer’s info? And will it depend as well in the type of tax?
Residential taxes are simple, because there’s a lot of commonality to houses in the same neighbourhood, and regular « comparables », because house sales occur and the value is entered on the title records as part of the mortgage? That would give the assessors a market check.
But if a big commercial land deal involves many players and types of interests, there may not be comparables and the assessors have to rely on info provided by the taxpayer ?
Do we have any accountants on the SDMB who could comment?
I thought they were appealing the summary judgment and looking for a delay in the trial until that appeal is heard. But maybe I misunderstood that, maybe they are just appealing for a stay on the revocation of business certificates through trial and subsequent appeals.
I haven’t had a chance to look closely as I’m in trial myself this week. So, what you suggest is possible. However, I would think that a stay on the rest of the case is discretionary and certainly can’t be assumed. (again, I’m not a NY lawyer, so I could be wrong here too)
We know from early on in Letitia James’ case against Trump that the matter had ‘also been referred to the IRS and to the US Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, for further investigation.’
To the extent the undervaluation concerned federal income (including Gift) tax, it seems like it’s precisely in the IRS wheelhouse. But you’d have to wonder if NY State (and others?) mightn’t have similar issues (state income tax) with his behavior under the same sets of facts.
I have neither seen nor looked for any further stories on this*, but have to wonder – based solely on that NYT story – what’s still viable under the Statutes of Limitations.
I haven’t looked into exactly what the SDNY USAG could charge him with, specifically, and just how much help Engoron’s ruling – if upheld on appeal – would be, but …
To me, the truly shameful part of this case is the rarity of such cases being made. I think it’s agreed, generally, by both sides, that James brought the case and pursued it so vigorously, because of the notoriety that Trump brought upon himself.
But if he could be found guilty, so overwhelmingly and in summary judgment, doesn’t it stand to reason that other, perhaps more difficult but potentially winnable, cases against MANY other businesses could have and should have been investigated over the decades?
I’m suggesting that such frauds occur routinely, probably not quite as blatantly or stupidly as Trump’s, and that businessmen get away with them because they know how rarely they’re pursued.
Frankly, I don’t see how some low-level clerk in the AG’s office isn’t charged with reviewing the annual tax statements and insurance papers for every business, every year, to see if there are any significant discrepancies at all between what they claim for insurance purposes and for tax purposes.
Trump should have been charged for these frauds decades ago. But so should many other businesses that we’ll nver know about.
Yeah, my wife is a real estate appraiser for county government. Finding comps (comparable) is a lot of it. A lot of that is computerized now a days.
Location, is of course key in real estate. The only thing I think you could do for large commercial properties is throw a much, much bigger net. You might compare something in Chicago to NYC.
This is TOTAL speculation. My Wife does not appraise commercial properties.
That’s our tax system hard at work. It’s compicated enough so that it’s easy to hide fraud from most prying eyes (unless someone is dumb enough to shine a spotlight on it). And of course people with resources can stretch loopholes beyond the breaking point, then bury the details in their accountant’s books.
Also, most other fraudsters are probably smart enough to know not to steal too much, for fear of being caught. If you were to consistently claim a 5-10% disparity in valuations like this, you’d have a built in profit, but not a large enough profit to draw attention.
But Trump isn’t anywhere near that smart. Just in his rant posted above, he tried to claim a valuation for Mar a Lago 100 times the valuation that the judge suggested. No way do you hide that kind of discrepancy forever. Unsurprisingly, Trump got greedy, and then got caught.
OK but my point is that this was all hanging out there for decades, and zip was done about it, even as Donald bragged about his brilliant business moves in the tabloids. What you suggest is that by being 10% more discreet than he was, you could get away with gross frauds forever
yes, and that suggests that there are lots of them being perpetuated (on you and me) every day. All the AG needs to do is look assiduously for them, and they’ll find them. Which is why I suggest that they’re not doing their jobs.
I get your frustration here. The tax system is oriented to allow the wealthy to protect and grow their wealth on a bigger scale than you and I. Once in a while one of them will slip, like Leona Helmsley’s famous “Only the little people pay taxes”, and now braggart Trump. It’s not that no one knows what’s going on, or people not doing their jobs, it’s just no one has the time to investigate each and every fraud suspicion where it will take a lot of effort to distangle what happened. In Trump’s case, someone thought it was worth the trouble.
I just wanted to point out that, despite the right wing media spin, the judge was not the one that suggested that Mar-A-Lago was worth between 18 million and 27 million dollars. The judge was simply citing the valuation as assessed by the local tax authorities.
I agree that the 18 million is probably very low, but that’s not an indication of impropriety. In fact, it goes to the heart of the claim, which was that the valuations were inflated when the Trump Organization was trying to obtain financing based on the value of the property, and deflated when they had to pay taxes based on the value of the property.
The main reason AIUI why Trump was able to get away with all this for so long is because his is a closely held family company.
Publicly held companies must file regular reports with the SEC and accountings to shareholders and such which makes it easier to keep tabs on them.
A company that is owned by just a few people (Trump and his immediate family members) is never accountable to anyone outside those owners. This allows them to evade all sorts of legal and tax consequences.
@snowthx makes another good point, that no one has time, money or resources to investigate each and every fraud suspicion. Are you willing to pay higher taxes so the agencies tasked with handling these sorts of complex investigations have sufficient resources to do it? Rich people sure aren’t.
So easy to blame a problem on lazy public servants instead of taking the time to learn what the real issues are. As a former public servant who worked my ass off, I’ll just say I find it offensive.
“he also seems to imply that the numbers cannot be inflated because he could find a ‘buyer from Saudi Arabia’ to pay any price he suggests.”
I’m not sure that defense is what I’d put forward, especially given the already suspicious Kushner/Saudi and trump jr./Saudi connections… “The Saudis will give me anything I ask for” really just leads to the question, “Why?”, and i don’t think he wants to answer that question.
[slight hijack]
Trump authorized the sale of North America’s largest oil refinery (Port Arthur) and 24 distribution terminals to Saudi Arabia’s oil company, ARAMCO. This was an effort to bolster ARAMCO’s impending Initial Public Offering.
Saudi Arabia: the ones who sponsor his LIV Golf tour and who gave Jared Kushner $2 Billion dollars to play with.
So … Making Saudi Arabia Great Again?
[/slight hijack]