Two of the paragraphs that raised an alarm for inaccurate reporting in this article are the following:
“The manipulation of values to evade taxes was central to one of the most important financial events in Donald Trump’s life. In an episode never before revealed, Mr. Trump and his siblings gained ownership of most of their father’s empire on Nov. 22, 1997, a year and a half before Fred Trump’s death. Critical to the complex transaction was the value put on the real estate. The lower its value, the lower the gift taxes. The Trumps dodged hundreds of millions in gift taxes by submitting tax returns that grossly undervalued the properties, claiming they were worth just $41.4 million.
The same set of buildings would be sold off over the next decade for more than 16 times that amount.”
Considering that these tax returns were certainly audited by the IRS and New York Tax authorities, that level of undervaluation is just not possible. People have to get a professional appraiser to do an appraisal of market value for each property in the tax return. The appraisers write up a report for every property, including their detailed appraisal methods. It’s just not possible that these properties could have been sold for over sixteen times the appraised value, unless Donald Trump and his siblings did major improvements to these properties.
The three writers for the NYT must have missed something here or the numbers they are using are just wrong. There’s no possible way that the market value of these properties could rise to more than sixteen times the appraised value in less than a decade without major improvements to the properties. So either Donald Trump and his siblings built new buildings on the land they received, and possibly removed old buildings, or the writers for the NYT just got the numbers wrong. If the Trumps tried to submit appraisals that grossly undervalued these properties, then IRS auditors would have easily noticed severe undervaluation when they read through the appraisal reports. So the NYT is all screwed up here, one way or another.
Regarding the company that bought supplies for Fred Trump’s properties, that sounds like a smart way to have one company negotiate with suppliers for all of the supplies and repair work for all his properties, and get substantial quantity discounts through large purchases and greater bargaining power. Then the purchasing company kept those discounts as earnings for that company. Sounds like a smart business operation to me. What is the NYT talking about here? This corporation would have been audited by a CPA firm and IRS auditors for sure, so there’s no possibility of fraud by this purchasing company.
The NYT is probably going to end up looking incredibly foolish and corrupt for publishing this article, and will end up apologizing to President Trump and his family.
socialism_stinX wrote:
“Two of the paragraphs that raised an alarm for inaccurate reporting in this article are the following:
“The manipulation of values to evade taxes was central to one of the most important financial events in Donald Trump’s life. In an episode never before revealed, Mr. Trump and his siblings gained ownership of most of their father’s empire on Nov. 22, 1997, a year and a half before Fred Trump’s death. Critical to the complex transaction was the value put on the real estate. The lower its value, the lower the gift taxes. The Trumps dodged hundreds of millions in gift taxes by submitting tax returns that grossly undervalued the properties, claiming they were worth just $41.4 million.
The same set of buildings would be sold off over the next decade for more than 16 times that amount.”
Considering that these tax returns were certainly audited by the IRS and New York Tax authorities, that level of undervaluation is just not possible. People have to get a professional appraiser to do an appraisal of market value for each property in the tax return. The appraisers write up a report for every property, including their detailed appraisal methods. It’s just not possible that these properties could have been sold for over sixteen times the appraised value, unless Donald Trump and his siblings did major improvements to these properties.
The three writers for the NYT must have missed something here or the numbers they are using are just wrong. There’s no possible way that the market value of these properties could rise to more than sixteen times the appraised value in less than a decade without major improvements to the properties. So either Donald Trump and his siblings built new buildings on the land they received, and possibly removed old buildings, or the writers for the NYT just got the numbers wrong. If the Trumps tried to submit appraisals that grossly undervalued these properties, then IRS auditors would have easily noticed severe undervaluation when they read through the appraisal reports. So the NYT is all screwed up here, one way or another.
Regarding the company that bought supplies for Fred Trump’s properties, that sounds like a smart way to have one company negotiate with suppliers for all of the supplies and repair work for all his properties, and get substantial quantity discounts through large purchases and greater bargaining power. Then the purchasing company kept those discounts as earnings for that company. Sounds like a smart business operation to me. What is the NYT talking about here? This corporation would have been audited by a CPA firm and IRS auditors for sure, so there’s no possibility of fraud by this purchasing company.
The NYT is probably going to end up looking incredibly foolish and corrupt for publishing this article, and will end up apologizing to President Trump and his family.”
Good analysis & questions!
Why that story didn’t work during the election, and why it won’t work now, is that PDJT has gotten audited every year, and nothing major has come of it.