When we put in new air conditioning part of the process was filling out a form with the value, and our tax base went up slightly. It didn’t when we put in new windows, since that was an enhanced replacement not a new feature.
Still, in either case, we didn’t inflate the value of the property to the bank and devalue the same property to the tax assessor. That’s where the potential fraud comes in.
The IRS is not sending the information - his accountant is. With all the supporting information, much of which the IRS doesn’t have.
We (anti Trumpers) have gone down this path before (Mueller, impeachment, lawsuits, etc) and we’ve been disappointed every time. Trump currently has too much wealth and connections to go down easily. It’s possible but I would bet even money that he never sees jail time.
He can probably charm about half of them and unfortunately that’s all he needs.
Is there now a means to compel the accountant to send it all? If they stall or resist, can the information be seized?
I’d be just as happy to see him forced to liquidate holdings to satisfy his creditors and tax debts (plus penalties).
The impression I got from the Times article was that the accounting firm was waiting for the resolution of the court cases. I can’t see any reason they would risk legal action by refusing the request. And they had every reason to withhold the information if there was any chance the AG would not get it through the courts.
Trump’s probably stiffing them anyhow.
Ah, I didn’t realize that.
Do you think that he pays his accountant enough to go to jail for him?
While he was president, sure. You cannot impeach a sitting president, according to some DOJ memo, and an impeachment conviction is a high bar to reach that I don’t think that anyone actually expected.
He’s losing wealth and connections pretty quickly right now. I don’t know that he ever sees the inside of a jail cell, maybe, maybe not. But I’d be surprised if he’s not wiped out by the lawsuits and legal fees by the end of it.
The assessments of residential property are based on some form of replacement cost minus depreciation, it varies a little by jurisdiction. But a large commercial property is usually based on the income they generate. This is mostly done by estimating what the incomes would be under normal circumstances. The assessor probably wouldn’t have had the real (or fraudulent) income statements unless the value had been challenged by the owners. So if this is the evidence the state has against them it’s because they handed it to the government to get a reduced tax bill. Same with the IRS and the banks. It’s all self reported, just seems like they were assuming these entities wouldn’t be comparing notes.
Just another way the wealthy stay that way, at the expense of the rest.
About 5 years ago, I saw a report that Trump claimed his name was worth about 6 to 8 billion (I don’t remember the exact figure). And since he did rent his name out to be put on large buildings, that may have been an accurate figure. But that was before he was elected. And the value probably went up after his election.
Who knows what it’s worth now. I imagine that there’s some places where his name is still prized, but there’s a number of buildings that are no longer Trump-whatever.
The first thing I’d do is count the floors. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Trump has a loan against a 50-story building, and is paying taxes on a 40-story building at the same address.
If anything, it has negative value.
Trump Tower has been struggling during the Trump administration, with plummeting condo prices, soaring hotel vacancies and a dearth of retail tenants.
“Ever since Trump became president, or really since he launched his campaign, that’s when the prices started to decline,” Skowron said. “I think they’ve hit rock bottom.”
The Trump Hotel Chicago has not fared well during the Trump presidency either. Documents filed by the Trump Hotel with Cook County, obtained and posted online by The Washington Post, show that revenue declined from $72.3 million in 2015 to $50.3 million in 2018.
This NYT article explains a bit of it:
The tax returns represent a self-reported accounting of revenues and expenses, and often lack the specificity required to know, for instance, if legal costs related to hush-money payments were claimed as a tax write-off, or if money from Russia ever moved through Mr. Trump’s bank accounts. The absence of that level of detail underscores the potential value of other records that Mr. Vance won access to with Monday’s Supreme Court decision.
In addition to the tax returns, Mr. Trump’s accountants, Mazars USA, must also produce business records on which those returns are based and communications with the Trump Organization. Such material could provide important context and background to decisions that Mr. Trump or his accountants made when preparing to file taxes.
John D. Fort, a former chief of the I.R.S. criminal investigation division, said tax returns were a useful tool for uncovering leads, but could only be fully understood with additional financial information obtained elsewhere.
“It’s a very key personal financial document, but it’s just one piece of the puzzle,” said Mr. Fort, a C.P.A. and the director of investigations with Kostelanetz & Fink in Washington. “What you find in the return will need to be followed up on with interviews and subpoenas.”
Also note the term “self-reported accounting” in the first paragraph. Garbage in = garbage out, so the extra documentation and further requests for information will be critical. It’s quite possible there was lots of lying happening even between the business and its accountants.
What also will be extremely important if all this ends up in front of a jury is the ability of the prosecutors to explain byzantine financial ‘arrangements’ to a jury that may not necessarily be familiar with these sorts of machinations. I am sure the defense will work very hard to keep people with sophisticated financial knowledge off that jury (and they will be helped by people who have that knowledge working to keep themselves off a jury in general).
Wouldn’t it be easier to explain the chicanery to them? And wouldn’t these better-educated people be more likely to not be Trump supporters?
(Unless “people with sophisticated financial knowledge” are actually the kind of Wall Street types who would secretly admire Trump for getting away with this crap.)
Definitely in the US, Canada, Western Europe, probably Australia/NZ. But the rest of the world doesn’t follow internal US politics as closely, so they may not have as negative a view of Trump.
I suspect that, were it to ever get to a jury, it’ll be a nightmare for that jury to deliberate, even if they’re well-educated people. Even tax law experts would probably have a hard time sorting it out.
The defense wouldn’t want people who can understand the chicanery on it. They would want people whose eyes glaze over at the complexity and are predisposed to thinking that all this is ‘UNFAIR1!’
D’oh – I completely missed that part. Yes, the defense will want MAGAts who think cheating on your taxes means your smart.
Yep. And as kenobi mentioned, these kinds of activities are very hard to sort out - which is one reason why white collar crime doesn’t get prosecuted as often it as should be. It’s complicated, consumes massive amounts of resources to unravel, and it doesn’t inspire the kind of fear that violent crime does, even though it does have the potential of ruining some people’s lives (think of the collapse of pension funds due to fraud here).
I don’t know. The concept of valuing property in two different ways resulting in two different values isn’t that hard. Paying Ivanka consulting fees while she is an employee (and officer, I think) of the company isn’t that hard to grasp either. I don’t think a jury has to grasp all the intricacies of a tax system to see fraud.