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Post by the Scribe on Sept 28, 2020 21:10:39 GMT
Mueller's top prosecutor connects the Trump tax revelations to Russiawww.yahoo.com/news/muellers-top-prosecutor-connects-trump-162231050.html Tim O'Donnell The Week Mon, September 28, 2020, 9:22 AM MST
Andrew Weissman, a prosecutor who served as one of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's top lieutenants during the investigation into 2016 Russian election interference, on Monday connected revelations about President Trump's tax information to Moscow.
The tax information, obtained by The New York Times, has sparked speculation that Trump may owe hundreds of millions of dollars to an unknown funding source that kept his businesses alive over the years. Weissman suggested that Trump's son, Eric Trump, may have provided the geographic location of the money, if not the exact source, all the way back in 2014, before the elder Trump had announced his 2016 presidential campaign. "We have all the funding we need out of Russia," Eric Trump said in 2014.
Weissmann is just one of many wondering if there's a common thread between the tax information, the 2016 election, and the president's foreign policy strategy, but the Times notes its investigation was unable to reveal "any previously unreported connections to Russia," so the situation remains unclear.
More stories from theweek.com
Trump literally can't afford to lose the election theweek.com/articles/940021/trump-literally-cant-afford-lose-election The bigger truth revealed by Trump's taxes theweek.com/articles/940111/bigger-truth-revealed-by-trumps-taxes Trump avoids tax return questions as he brings yet another truck to the White House theweek.com/speedreads/940107/trump-avoids-tax-return-questions-brings-another-truck-white-house
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Post by the Scribe on Sept 30, 2020 20:46:28 GMT
CNN’s Poppy Harlow Shuts Down White House Spokesperson | NowThis 129,417 views•Sep 29, 2020
‘Please stop doing that or this interview will end.’ — Watch CNN’s Poppy Harlow shut down this White House spokesperson who claimed The New York Times coordinated with the Democratic Party.
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Post by the Scribe on Sept 30, 2020 20:48:43 GMT
See how voters are reacting to Trump tax bombshell report 812,032 views•Sep 29, 2020
CNN's Martin Savidge speaks to voters in Georgia about the New York Times report on President Trump's taxes that revealed he has paid no income taxes for 10 out of 15 years.
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Post by the Scribe on Oct 10, 2020 6:19:52 GMT
David Cay Johnston: Trump Deserves to Be Jailed, But System Is Set Up to Let Rich Avoid Paying Taxes 77,624 views•Sep 29, 2020
Democracy Now! 794K subscribers Ahead of the first of three presidential debates between President Trump and Joe Biden, we speak with David Cay Johnston, founder and editor-in-chief of DCReport.org, who says the bombshell New York Times report on Trump's taxes highlights the existence of "two income tax systems, separate and unequal." The Times reports that Trump paid no federal income tax in 10 of the past 15 years and just $750 in 2016 and 2017. In a follow-up report, the Times reveals Trump made $427 million in connection to the hit reality TV show "The Apprentice," providing him a financial lifeline as other investments lost money. "People who own their own businesses, like Donald Trump, are under a different system," says Johnston.
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Post by the Scribe on Oct 12, 2020 8:28:03 GMT
'We Don’t Know Where This Thread Leads:’ Unraveling Trump's Tax Returns | Think | NBC News 43,700 views•Sep 30, 2020
NBC News 4.02M subscribers President Trump’s reported tax returns allegedly show a history of business losses and utilizing tax loopholes that have shielded him from paying federal income taxes for years. According to tax attorney Suzanne Garment, these alleged tactics are not uncommon for the wealthy and connected — but the extent to which Trump is accused of avoiding taxes makes him an outlier.www.nbcnews.com/think/video/president-trump-s-tax-returns-we-don-t-know-where-this-thread-leads-92816965752
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Post by the Scribe on Oct 25, 2020 9:13:15 GMT
In Trump Donations, Big Tax Write-Offs and Claims That Don't Always Add Upnews.yahoo.com/trump-donations-big-tax-write-135447007.html The New York Times Susanne Craig, Russ Buettner and Mike McIntire, The New York Times•October 24, 2020
Donald Trump speaks about his gift of land for use as a state park as then-Gov. George Pataki, center, looks on in Yorktown, N.Y., on April 19, 2006. (Librado Romero/The New York Times)
In President Donald Trump’s telling, he is a committed philanthropist with strong ties to many charities. “If you don’t give back, you’re never ever going to be fulfilled in life,” he wrote in “Trump 101: The Way to Success,” published at the height of his “Apprentice” fame.
And according to his tax records, he has given back at least $130 million since 2005, his second year as a reality TV star.
But the long-hidden tax records, obtained by The New York Times, show that Trump did not have to reach into his wallet for most of that giving. The vast bulk of his charitable tax deductions, $119.3 million worth, came from simply agreeing not to develop land — in several cases, after he had shelved development plans.
Three of the agreements involved what are known as conservation easements — a maneuver, popular among wealthy Americans, that typically allows a landowner to keep a property’s title and receive a tax deduction equal to its appraised value. In the fourth land deal, Trump donated property for a state park.
The New York attorney general is investigating whether the appraisals on two of Trump’s easement donations were improperly inflated to win larger tax breaks, according to court filings.
Trump’s pronouncements of philanthropic largesse have been broadly discredited by reporting, most notably in The Washington Post, that found he had exaggerated, or simply never made, an array of claimed contributions. His own charitable foundation shut down in 2018 amid allegations of self-dealing to benefit Trump, his businesses and his campaign.
But the tax data examined by the Times lends new authority and far greater precision to those findings. The records, encompassing his reported philanthropic activity through 2017, reveal not only its exact dimensions; they show that much of his charity has come when he was under duress — facing damage to his reputation or big tax bills in years of high income.
Of the $7.5 million in business and personal cash contributions reported to the IRS since 2005, more than 40% — $3.2 million — came starting in 2015, when Trump’s philanthropy fell under scrutiny after he announced his White House bid. In 2017, his first year in office, he declared $1.9 million in cash gifts. In 2014, by contrast, he contributed $81,499.
And his first two land-easement donations were made in what the tax records show was a period of significant taxable income — 2005 and 2006, prime time for his reality TV fame.
The president’s Trump Organization biography says he is “involved with numerous civic and charitable organizations.” When he announced his campaign in 2015, he said he had given more than $102 million to charity over the previous five years.
While it is possible that he chose not to report some of his giving, his tax records for 2010 to 2014 reflect far less than he claimed — $735,238 in cash and $26.8 million in land easements and other noncash gifts. Six months into the campaign, in December 2015, another easement, valued at $21.1 million, was completed.
In response to questions from the Times, Amanda Miller, a spokesperson for the Trump Organization, said: “President Trump gives money privately. It’s impossible to know how much he’s given over the years.”
The tax information analyzed by the Times includes annual totals for business and individual giving but lists only certain corporate donations.
The single largest cash donation he reported for his businesses, made to his own foundation, was the $400,000 he received in 2011 for being roasted on Comedy Central. In 2014, his Virginia winery contributed a glass sculpture valued at $73,600 to a small historical society in Pennsylvania. And in 2016, another one of his companies gave $30,000 to the American Hotel & Lodging Education Foundation.
Even without the details of Trump’s individual giving, the Times was able to identify public philanthropic promises that appear either to have been exaggerated or to have never materialized. In each case, the size of his pledge exceeded what he told the IRS he had given in a particular year.
In 2009, for example, he agreed to rent his Seven Springs estate in Westchester County, New York, to Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who hoped to stay in a tent on the grounds during a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.
Though the plans fell apart when local residents objected, Gadhafi made a payment of $150,000, which Trump told CNN in 2011 he had given to charity. His 2009 tax returns, however, reported only $22,796 in business and personal cash gifts.
In 2015, Trump promised to donate the earnings from his book “Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again.’’
“The profits of my book? I am giving them away to a lot of different — including the vets,” he said at a news conference.
The tax records show that Waxman Leavell Literary Agency, which represented Trump’s book, made two payments to him in 2015 and 2016, totaling roughly $4.5 million. In those years, Trump reported giving a total of $1.3 million in cash to charity.
Many wealthy individuals create their own foundations, often as a way to have greater control over their philanthropy. While Trump’s foundation, started in 1988, gave millions to charity before shutting down in 2018, most of it was other people’s money. Trump himself donated $5.4 million to the foundation, with the last contribution in 2008, according to the organization’s tax filings.
The majority of the president’s philanthropy, though, has consisted of his four land deals with conservation groups or the government.
His first easement donation, which yielded a tax deduction of $39.1 million in 2005, involved a parcel of land at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
The next year, he donated 436 acres of land for a state park in Westchester and Putnam counties in New York after development plans ran up against tough regulatory restrictions. While the precise value of the easement is not clear, he reported noncash charitable contributions of $34 million that year.
Trump had bought the property in the 1990s for $2 million, according to numerous published reports. Today it is overgrown and has few facilities or visitors.
The two most recent easement deductions are being examined by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, part of a broader investigation into whether the Trump Organization inflated the value of assets to get loans and tax benefits.
In 2014, after abandoning plans to develop an 11.5-acre property being used as a driving range at his Los Angeles golf club, Trump received a $25.1 million tax deduction for an easement agreement with a land conservancy. Few details of the inquiry into the deal have emerged.
Court papers shed more light on the other easement under investigation.
In late 2015, Trump got a $21.1 million tax break for 158.6 acres of land at the Seven Springs estate, after years of unsuccessful attempts to build a golf course on it.
The attorney general’s court filing says that after Trump abandoned plans to develop Seven Springs, he asked Sheri Dillon, a tax lawyer at Morgan Lewis who had advised him in the past, to have the land appraised.
Dillon told Cushman & Wakefield, the firm that did the appraisal, that “the client blew up at her,” and she leaned on the appraisers to take steps that would push the value up, according to the court filing.
Several weeks ago, after months of delays, Trump’s son Eric gave a deposition in the case.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing. “President Trump was not involved in the appraisals mentioned, which were done by the most respected appraisal and brokerage company in the country,” said Miller, the Trump Organization spokesperson.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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Post by the Scribe on Jul 1, 2021 19:25:30 GMT
It is amazing to me (but not really) that CONservatives have NO problem electing a major tax cheat to represent their crooked party. The man needs to fry. Being a Tax Cheat and Tax Evader is one of the criteria for being called a CONservative. Liar is another. Adulterer and pedophile yet another. And the party needs to GO AWAY. Lock them all up!
Associated Press Trump Organization, CFO indicted on tax fraud charges www.yahoo.com/news/trump-organization-cfo-expected-court-050817514.html MICHAEL R. SISAK and TOM HAYS Wed, June 30, 2021, 10:08 PM
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Post by the Scribe on Sept 22, 2021 13:47:36 GMT
This proved what a fraud, liar and con man Trump is. Why do you think he has fought so hard to hide his taxes from public view unlike every president before him has done? Proof of his lying character and how easily fooled and compliant conservative butt kissers are.Trump sues niece, NY Times over records behind '18 tax storywww.yahoo.com/news/trump-sues-niece-ny-times-044655517.html MICHAEL R. SISAK Tue, September 21, 2021, 9:46 PM
FILE - In this July 11, 2021, file photo former President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, Texas. Trump on Tuesday, Sept. 21 sued his estranged niece, Mary Trump, and The New York Times over a bombshell 2018 story about his family’s wealth and tax practices that was based on confidential documents she provided to the newspaper’s reporters. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday sued his estranged niece and The New York Times over a 2018 story about his family’s wealth and tax practices that was partly based on confidential documents she provided to the newspaper’s reporters.
Trump’s lawsuit, filed in state court in New York, accuses Mary Trump of breaching a settlement agreement by disclosing tax records she received in a dispute over family patriarch Fred Trump’s estate. www.documentcloud.org/documents/21067078-donald-trump-lawsuit-against-mary-trump-and-the-new-york-times
The lawsuit accuses the Times and three of its investigative reporters, Susanne Craig, David Barstow and Russell Buettner, of relentlessly seeking out Mary Trump as a source of information and convincing her to turn over documents. The suit claims the reporters were aware the settlement agreement barred her from disclosing the documents.
The Times’ story challenged Trump’s claims of self-made wealth by documenting how his father, Fred, had given him at least $413 million over the decades, including through tax avoidance schemes. www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-tax-schemes-fred-trump.html
Mary Trump identified herself in a book published last year as the source of the documents provided to the Times.
Trump’s lawsuit alleges Mary Trump, the Times and its reporters “were motivated by a personal vendetta” against him and a desire to push a political agenda.
The defendants “engaged in an insidious plot to obtain confidential and highly-sensitive records which they exploited for their own benefit and utilized as a means of falsely legitimizing their publicized works,” the lawsuit said.
In a statement to NBC News, Mary Trump said of her uncle, “I think he is a loser, and he is going to throw anything against the wall he can. It’s desperation. The walls are closing in and he is throwing anything against the wall that he thinks will stick. As is always the case with Donald, he’ll try and change the subject.”
A Times spokesperson, Danielle Rhoads Ha, said the lawsuit “is an attempt to silence independent news organizations and we plan to vigorously defend against it.”
The Times’ coverage of Trump’s taxes, she said, “helped inform citizens through meticulous reporting on a subject of overriding public interest.”
One of the Times reporters, Craig, responded in a tweet: “I knocked on Mary Trump’s door. She opened it. I think they call that journalism.”
Trump is seeking $100 million in damages.
Trump filed his lawsuit almost a year to the day after Mary Trump sued him over allegations that he and two of his siblings cheated her out of millions of dollars over several decades while squeezing her out of the family business.
That case is pending.
Mary Trump, 56, is the daughter of Donald Trump’s brother, Fred Trump Jr., who died in 1981 at age 42. Mary Trump was 16 at the time.
Trump’s lawsuit focuses only on the Times’ 2018 story, a Pulitzer Prize winner for explanatory reporting. It makes no mention of another Times scoop on Trump's taxes last year, which found he paid no federal income taxes in 10 of the previous 15 years. www.pulitzer.org/winners/david-barstow-susanne-craig-and-russ-buettner-new-york-times
According to the lawsuit, Mary Trump came into possession of more than 40,000 pages of “highly sensitive, proprietary, private and confidential documents” through a legal case involving Fred Trump’s will.
The documents including financial records, accountings, tax returns, bank statements, and legal papers pertaining to Donald Trump, Fred Trump and their businesses, Trump’s lawsuit said.
In 2001, about two years after Fred Trump died, Mary Trump and other family members entered into a settlement agreement with confidentiality and non-disclosure clauses that barred them from sharing information about Fred Trump’s estate in, among other venues, newspaper stories, Trump’s lawsuit said. The agreement also covered the estate of Fred’s wife, Mary Anne Trump, who died in 2000.
Trump, who bashed the Times repeatedly during his presidency as the “failing New York Times,” noted in the lawsuit that the 2018 article was viewed more online than any previous Times article and that the New York Times Company’s stock price jumped 7.4% the week it ran.
The Times’ story said that Donald Trump and his father avoided gift and inheritance taxes by methods including setting up a sham corporation and undervaluing assets to tax authorities. The Times says its report was based on more than 100,000 pages of financial documents, including confidential tax returns from the father and his companies. apnews.com/article/north-america-donald-trump-ap-top-news-tax-evasion-politics-0452d29cd2564eaf97605ab90acc3a67
Mary Trump’s book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” debuted in the midst of Donald Trump’s re-election campaign last year. Donald Trump’s brother, Robert, tried unsuccessfully to have a court block the book’s publication, citing the 2001 settlement agreement. apnews.com/article/donald-trump-us-news-new-york-mary-trump-robert-trump-29430fb02aee68863a62bf302bc94f62
Ruling in Mary Trump’s favor, a judge said the confidentiality clauses, “viewed in the context of the current Trump family circumstances in 2020, would ‘…offend public policy as a prior restraint on protected speech.”
In the book, Mary Trump recounted providing the family financial records that underlaid the Times’ reporting. The book sold more than 1.3 million copies in its first week and soaring to No. 1 on the Times’ bestseller list.
In an interview connected with the release of the book, Mary Trump told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos she didn’t feel the non-disclosure agreement “mattered one way or the other because what I have to say is too important.” abcnews.go.com/Politics/transcript-mary-trumps-interview-abc-news-george-stephanopoulos/story?id=71803869 __
Follow Michael Sisak on Twitter at twitter.com/mikesisak twitter.com/mikesisak
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