Did Donald Trump engage in tax evasion, fraud, and more while amassing his millions? A new expose’ in The New York Times says YES!
Current Events
According to Tuesday’s Times article, Trump helped “his parents dodge taxes” in the ’90s, including “instances of outright fraud” that allowed him to garner a fortune from them.
“The Donald” has always billed himself as a “self-made billionaire,” claiming that he only borrowed a measly million from his father, Fred C. Trump, then turned that small sum into a global real estate business and a king’s ransom in cash. However, The Times has aggressively refuted that story with information that Trump received at least $413 million in today’s dollars from his father’s real estate empire when he was only 3-years-old. Then as adults, he and his siblings created fraud with their parents’ wealth by hiding millions of dollars of gifts in a “sham corporation” and assisting his father in taking “improper tax deductions worth millions more.”
The scheme was centered around Trump convincing his parents to undervalue their real estate holdings on their tax returns, in order to reduce their tax bill and commit tax evasion. To date, Trump still brags about how smart he is for being able to avoid paying US taxes for so many years. At least now we know how that practice first began.
Reportedly, Trump’s father was “relentless and creative” in finding ways to funnel wealth to his children. As a child and young adult, Donald Trump was frequently on his father’s payroll for multiple positions. Multiple loans were provided to him and often never repaid. Fred Trump even gave Donald money for his car and to buy stocks and his first Manhattan office.
“Evading gift and estate taxes became a family affair” when Fred Trump was diagnosed with dementia in his 80s, The Times said.
In one specific example, The Times detailed how Trump and his siblings gained ownership of most of their father’s businesses a year and a half before he died. They made use of a technicality via the GRAT trust (short for Grantor-Retained Annuity Trust) which helps to pass stocks, real estate, and art collections from one generation to the next without having to pay estate taxes.
Legal loophole, or blatant tax evasion?
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The Times spent multiple months investigating and reviewing more than 100,000 pages of financial documents, including bank statements, financial audits, cash disbursement reports, and canceled checks, including 200 tax returns from Fred Trump. They also interviewed several of the senior Trump’s former employees and advisers.
The investigative findings now lend credence to why Donald Trump still refuses to release his tax returns.
In addition to expected denials from The White House, Trump attorney Charles Harder also weighed in on the article.
“The New York Times’ allegations of fraud and tax evasion are 100% false, and highly defamatory,” Harder said. “There was no fraud or tax evasion by anyone. The facts upon which the Times bases its false allegations are extremely inaccurate,” he added.
However, James Gazzale, a spokesman for the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, said the agency “is reviewing the allegations in the New York Times article and is vigorously pursuing all appropriate avenues of investigation.”
Stay tuned…
Thus confirming what many of Us had already strongly suspected anyway – the man’s life is collection of too many LIES to number totally one Big fat Lie. The “self-made billionaire” MYTH is finally exposed. Laid out in great detail for those of Us who live in the real world of Truth and Facts.
Beginning with Trump’s (deceased) father it seems that most members of the Trump family are simply corrupt, dishonest and rotten to the core. There AIN’T much more to that family. Donald’s parents, his sibs, his 3 oldest children – what a family legacy…smh. Just corrupt, dishonest and rotten to the core.